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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



I2MO, ILLUSTRATED, PER VOL., $1.50 ; ]/ 2 LEATHER, GILT TOP, $1-75 
THE EARLIER VOLUMES ARE 

THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Jas. A. Harrison 

THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer 

THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baking-Gould 

THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 

THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HUNGARY. By Prof. A. Vambery 

THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman 

THE STORY OF THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF THE NORMANS. By Sarah O. Jewett 

THE STORY OF PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin 

THE STORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT. By Geo. Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffy 

THE STORY OF ASSYRIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Hon. Emily Lawless 

THE STORY OF THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley 

THE STORY OF TURKEY. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF MEDIAEVAL FRANCE. By Gustave Masson 

THE STORY OF MEXICO. By Susan Hale 

THE STORY OF HOLLAND. By James E. Thorold Rogers. 

THE STORY OF PHOENICIA. By George Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF THE HANSA TOWNS. By Helen Zimmern 

THE STORY OF EARLY BRITAIN. By Prof. Alfred J. Church 

THE STORY OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. By Stanley Lane-Poole 

THE STORY OF RUSSIA. By W. R. Morfill 

THE STORY OF THE JEWS UNDER ROME. By W. D. Morrison 

THE STORY OF SCOTLAND. By John Mackintosh 

THE STORY OF SWITZERLAND. By R. Stead and Mrs. A. Hug 

THE STQRY OF PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens 

THE STORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By C. W. C. Oman 

THE STORY OF SICILY. By E. A. Freeman 

THE STORY OF THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. By Bella Duffy 

THE STORY OF POLAND. By W. R. Morfill 

THE STORY OF PARTHIA. By George Rawlinson 

THE STORY OF JAPAN. By David Murray 

THE STOR V OF THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. By H. E. Watts 

THE STORY OF AUSTRALASIA. By Greville Tregarthen 

THE STORY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. By Geo. M. Theal 

THE STORY OF VENICE. By Alethea Wiel 

THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES. By T. S. Archer and C. L. Kingsford 

THE STORY OF VEDIC INDIA. By Z. A. Ragozin 

THE STORY OF BOHEMIA. By C. E. Maurice 

THE STORY OF CANADA. By J. G. Bourinot 

THE STORY OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. By R. W. Frazer 

THE STORY OF THE BALKANS. By William Miller 

For prospectus of the series see end of this volume 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON 




NICHOLAS I. 
PRINCE OF MONTENEGRO. 



^11 Tic J) -org of lhe JVaiions 

THE BALKANS 

ROUMANIA, BULGARIA, SERVIA 
AND MONTENEGRO 



WILLIAM MILLER, M.A. (O.XON. 

OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 









NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN 

1896 



M) 



Copyright, i8g6 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 

By T. FISHER UNWIN 



TEbe IRnicfeetboefeer ftveee, IRew JJ?orft 




PREFACE. 



THIS is the first attempt which has been made to 
present English readers with a concise account of the 
history of the four Balkan States. Yet the Balkan 
Peninsula has been in modern times what the Low 
Countries were in the Middle Ages — the cockpit of 
Europe. It is there that the eternal Eastern question 
has its origin ; it is there too that the West and the 
East, the Cross and the Crescent, meet. But it is impos- 
sible to understand the great problems, which still await 
solution in South-eastern Europe and are once more 
pressing themselves upon the attention of all thought- 
ful men, without some knowledge of Balkan history. 
The mutual jealousies of Bulgarian and Serb, the 
struggle of various races for supremacy in Macedonia, 
the alternate friendship and enmity of the Russian 
and the Turk are all facts, which have their root deep 
down in the past annals of the Balkan lands. Few 
persons in Western Europe remember what has never 
been forgotten in the Peninsula, that there was a time 
when the Servian and Bulgarian Empires were great 



Vlll PREFACE. 

Powers, and their respective rulers governed with the 
proud title of Czar a vast realm, which is still the 
dream of ardent patriots. Perusal of the following 
pages will probably convince the reader, that the only 
true settlement of the mutually conflicting claims of 
these historic states, which periodically endanger the 
peace of Europe, is a Balkan Confederation, such as 
was sketched by the late M. Tricoupis. 

Two events seemed to render the publication of 
the book particularly appropriate in the present year. 
The Bicentenary of the reigning dynasty of Monte- 
negro and the Hungarian Millenary are both largely 
concerned with Balkan history, and both occur in 
1896. 

The facts are taken from all the principal foreign 
works on the various countries and from my personal 
knowledge of the Balkan Peninsula. I am specially 
indebted to H.H. Prince Nicholas of Montenegro 
for the portrait of himself; to Mr. R. J. Kennedy, 
C.M.G., British charge d'affaires at Cetinje, for much 
valuable assistance ; and to Mr. Hagberg Wright, of 
the London Library. 

W. M. 





CONTENTS. 



Preface 



PAGE 

vii 



PART I. 

ROUMANIA. 

I. 

Dacia Before the Roman Conquest (106 a.d.) 1-18 

The Getae, or Dacians — Their wars with the Macedonian 
kings — First contact with the Romans — Bcerebistes and 
Cotiso — Decebalus and Domitian — Trajan's two Dacian 
campaigns — His column at Rome — Manners and customs 
of the Dacians. 



II. 



The Romans in Roumania (a.d. 106-274) 



19-25 



Extent of the new province — Amalgamation of the colonists 
and natives — Origin of modern Roumanians — Their 
language derived from Latin — Gothic invasions — Evacu- 
ation of the province by the Romans — " Aurelian's Dacia " 
— Influence of the Roman occupation. 



CONTENTS. 



III. 



The Barbarians in Roumania (274-about 

1250) 26-34 

The barbarian invaders : — the Goths ; the Huns ; the 
Gepidae ; the Lombards and Avars ; the Bulgarians in 
Roumania ; the Hungarians ; the Kumani — Origin of the 
Wallachs — Final disappearance of the barbarians. 

IV. 

The Two Principalities (1290-1601) . ' . 35-61 

Foundation of Wallachia and Moldavia — Mirtschea the Old — 
Wallachia tributary to the Turks — Vlad the Impaler and 
Stephen the Great — Moldavia submits — State of society at 
this period — John the Terrible and Michael the Brave. 

V. 

The Phanariotes in Roumania . . 62-89 

Matthew Bassarab and Basil " the Wolf " — Peter the 
Great and the Principalities — The Phanariote governors 
— The Russian wars and occupation — Treaty of Ka'inardji 
— Loss of Bucovina — Treaties of Jassy and Bucharest — 
End of Phanariote rule. 

VI. 

The Union.of the Principalities (1822-1866) 90-108 

Restoration of native Hospodars — Growth of Russian 
influence — Russian occupation, 1828-34 — The national 
movement — Revolution of 1848 — The Crimean War — 
Treaty of Paris — The principalities united under Couza — 
His deposition — Election of Prince Charles. 

VII. 

Roumania an Independent Kingdom . . 109- t 18 

Prince Charles and " Carmen Sylva " — The constitution of 
1866— New army organisation — The war of 1877 — Siege 
of Plevna — The Grivica Redoubt — Exchange of South 
Bessarabia for Dobrudza — Roumania a kingdom. 



CONTENTS. XI 

PART II. 
BULGARIA. 

I. PAGE 

From the Earliest Times to the Conversion 

of the Bulgarians (864 a.d.) . . . 1 19-134 

The Thracians — Philip of Macedon — Moesia, a Roman 
province — Becomes Dacia Aureliani — Barbarian inroads— 
The Slavs — The old Bulgarians — Their amalgamation with 
the Slavs — The Bulgarian princes, Krum and Omortag — 
Boris I. — Conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity. 

II. 

The First Bulgarian Empire (893-1018) . 135-158 

The zenith of Bulgaria — The Czar Simeon — His vast 
Empire — Literature of the period — The Czar Peter — First 
appearance of Russians in Bulgaria — Division of the 
country : Sisman — The hermits and Bogomiles — Boris II. : 
his capture and deposition — Downfall of East Bulgaria — 
The Czar Samuel in West Bulgaria — Basil "the Bulgar- 
slayer" — Death of Samuel — End of the First Bulgarian 
Empire. 

III. 

Bulgaria under the Greeks (1018-1186) . 159-166 

Administration of Bulgaria under the Greek Emperors — 
Revolts of Deljan and Bodin — Inroads of barbarians — 
Persecution of the Bogomiles — First mention of Albanians 
— Peter and John Asen — A costly slap in the face — Resto- 
ration of the Bulgarian Empire. 

IV. 

The Second Bulgarian Empire (1186-1398) . 167-193 

John Asen I. — Peter — Kalojan — His " union " with Rome — 
His capture of the Emperor Baldwin — The "slayer of the 



Xll CONTENTS. 

I 
Greeks" — Boril — John Asen II. — Greatness of Bulgaria — 
Rapid decline under his successors — The Terterij dynasty 
— The Sismans of Vidin — Battle of Velbuzd : the supre- 
macy of Servia — John Alexander : his divided realm — 
First appearance of the Turks — Capture of Trnovo — The 
last of the Czars — Society under the Empire 



V. 

Bulgaria under the Turks (1398-1878) . 194-214 

Organisation of the country — Condition of the Christians — 
The Vojniks — The church under Greek influence — Spiritual 
tyranny of the Phanariotes — Brigandage : Pasvanoglu — 
The Russians in Bulgaria : 1810 and 1829 — Turkish re- 
forms — The first Bulgarian school — The Church question — 
The Bulgarian atrocities — The war of 1877 — Bulgaria free. 



VI. 

The Union under Prince Alexander (1878- 
1886) 215-232 

The Russian interregnum — The Bulgarian Constitution — 
Prince Alexander — The coup d'etat of 1881 — Friction with 
Russia — Union of the two Bulgarias — Fury of the Czar — 
The Servian War — The Battle of Slivnitza and its results — 
Kidnapping of the Prince — His return and abdication. 



VII. 

Prince Ferdinand (1887-1896) . . . 233-248 

Kaulbars at Sofia — The Czar's election-agent — Wanted : 
a Prince — Election of Prince Ferdinand — The Stambuloff 
Ministry — The " Bulgarian Bismarck " — Foreign policy — 
The Bulgarian Bishops — The Bourgas and Panitza Plots — 
Murder of Beltcheff and Vulkovic — State of the country — 
Stambuloff's fall and assassination — Conclusion. 



CONTENTS. XI il 

PART III. 
SERVIA. 

I- PAGE 

Origin and Early History of the Serbs 
(to a.d. 1336) 249-271 

Origin of the Serbs — Their first appearance in the Balkans 
— Their government : Zupans and Grand lufans — Their 
conversion to Christianity — Conflicts with the Bulgarians — 
Nadir of Servia in 924 — Voislav the Liberator — Stephen 
Nemanja and his descendants — Saint Sava — Overthrow of 
Bulgaria by Stephen Uros. 

II. 

The Zenith of Servia under Stephen Dusan 
(i33 6 - I 3S 6 ) 272-282 

Character and conquests of DuSan — Extent and orga- 
nisation of his Empire — Proclaims himself Emperor — A 
Serb Patriarch — War with Hungary — Annexation of 
Bosnia — Stephen's code — His march on Constantinople 
and death. 

III. 

The Decline and Fall of Servia (1356-1459) 283-298 

Loss of Bosnia and Albania — Victories of the Turks — 
Lazar's campaigns — Battle of Kossovo, 1389 — Servia 
tributary to the Turks under " despots " of her own — 
Stephen Lazarevic and George Brankovic" — Temporary 
triumph of Servia — Her fall. 

IV. 

Servia under the Turks (1459-1804) . . 299-308 

Condition of the Serbs under Turkish rule : civil and 
religious government of the country — Hungarian Serbs 
under "despots " of their own — Attempts to free Servia — 
The " Black Legion " — Migration of the Patriarch Arsenius 
—The Serbs in Russia— The war of 1788— The Treaty of 
Sistova — Revival of national feeling. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

»■ PAGE 

The Struggle for Independence (1804-1860)309-331 

Cruelty of the Janissaries : the massacre of 1804 — Kara 
George : the war of 1806-7 — Servia practically free — 
Flight of Black George — The return of the Turks — Milosh 
Obrenovic — Black George's murder — Servia recognised as 
a Principality in 1830 — The Constitutions of 1835 and 
1838 — Fall of Milosh — Reigns of his sons Milan and 
Michael — Alexander Karageorgevic — Restoration and death 
of Milosh. 

VI. 

The Final Emancipation of Servia (1860-1878) 332-346 

Restoration of Michael — His domestic reforms — Evacu- 
ation of Belgrade by the Turkish garrison — Murder of 
Michael — The Regency : Constitution of 1869 — Milan — 
War with Turkey in 1876-8 — Servia as affected by the 
treaties of San Stefano and Berlin — Milan proclaimed 
King. 

VII. 

The Modern Kingdom of Servia (1882-1896) 347-351 

The war with Bulgaria — The Royal divorce — The Con- 
stitution of 1888 — Abdication of Milan — The Regency — 
The coups d'etat of 1893-4 — King Alexander I. 



PART IV. 
MONTENEGRO. 

1. 

From the Earliest Times to the Battle of 
Kossovo (1389) 353-3 6 3 

Montenegro : origin of the name — Its early history — The 
Romans in Illyria — Dioclea — The Serb kings — Montenegro 
a part of Serb Empire — The battle of Kossovo. 



CONTENTS. XV 

II. PAGE 

From the Battle of Kossovo to the Last of 
the Black Princes (1389-1516) . 364-382 

The Balshas — Montenegro the refuge of the Serbs — The 
first Turkish invasion — Stephen Crnoievic — Skanderbeg — 
Ivan the Black — The first Slavonic printing-press — Cetinje 
the capital — The story of Stanicha — The influence of 
Venice — Abdication of the last of the Black Princes. 

III. 

The Elective Vladikas (1516-1696) . 383-391 

Montenegro ruled by elective Bishops — The civil governors 
— Troubles with Turks and renegades — Destruction of the 
Press — The tribute for slippers — State of the country in 
seventeenth century — A new crusade — Story of Jahja — 
Cetinje twice captured. 

IV. 

The First Three Hereditary Prince-Bishops 
(1696-1782) 392-407 

The hereditary Vladikas — Danilo I. — The " Montenegrin 
Vespers " — Expulsion of the renegades — The first connec- 
tion with Russia — Peter the Great and Montenegro — 
Turkish invasions — The battle of Tsarevlaz — Sava and 
Vassili — The Russian indemnity — The story of Stephen 
the Little— The Perkin Warbeck of the Black Mountain. 

V. 

Peter I. — the Bonaparte of the Black Moun- 
tain (1782-1830) .... 408-423 

Defeat and death of Kara Mahmoud — Formal incorporation 
of the Berda — Effects cf the Treaty of Campo Formio — War 
with France — Siege of Ragusa — Napoleon's overtures — 
The "red" mountain — England and Montenegro — Capture 
of Cattaro ; its surrender to Austria — The long peace — 
Internal reforms — Death and canonisation of the Vladika. 



XVI CONTENTS 

VI. PAGE 

Peter II. and Danilo II. (1830-1860) . .424-449 

The last of the Vladikas — Turkish offer refused — Struggles 
with the Turks and Austrians — Treachery of Radonic— 
Abolition of civil governor — A Montenegrin Senate — Peter 
restores the Press — His poems — The " Billiard-Table " — 
Danilo II. — Separation of ecclesiastical and temporal power 
—The "Code Danilo "—The battle of Grahovo— The 
" Sword of Montenegro " — Assassination of Danilo. 

VII. 

Montenegro under Nicholas I. (1860-1896) 450-468 

Character of the new prince — His education— The Turkish 
War of 1862— Ostrog — Death of Mirko — Military reform — 
" Constitution " of 1868 — The first Montenegrin ministry — 
The new schools — The Cattaro rising — The Turkish war 
of 1876 — Montenegro after the Berlin Treaty — The 
Dulcigno demonstration — Albanian feuds — The Prince as 
road-maker — The New Code — The 400th anniversary of the 
Press — The Bicentenary of the Dynasty. 

INDEX 469 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Nicholas i., prince of montenegro. Frontispiece 
decebalus. From a bust at St. Petersburg . . 7 

BATTLE OF THE ROMANS AND DACIANS. From 

Trajan's Column at Rome . . . -13 

DACIANS SETTING FIRE TO THEIR CAPITAL. FlVlll 

Trajan's Column at Rome . . . 14 

THE ROUMANIAN ARMS l8 

mirtschea the great. From the series of historical 

MSS. published by the Roumanian Government 37 
Stephen the great OF Moldavia. From the series 

of historical MSS. published by the Roumanian 

Government . . . . . . . 41 

MICHAEL the brave. From the series of historical 

MSS. published by the Roumanian Government . 50 
Moldavian coins. From the series of historical 

MSS. published by the Roum-anian Government . 59 
basil "the wolf." From the series of histoiical 

MSS. published by the Roumanian Government . 64 
matthew bassarab. From the series of historical 

MSS. published by the Roumanian Government . 65 
old Roumanian seal. From the series of historical 

MSS. published by the Roumanian Government . 88 

I A xvii 



XVU1 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



ROMAN SCULPTURE AT NICOPOLIS. FlVlll Kanitz, 

" Donau-Bulgarien" ..... 121 

BULGARIAN ATTACK ON CONSTANTINOPLE IN 813. 

From Kanitz, " Donau-Bulgarien " . . . 129 

THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE .... I38 

ruins of preslav. From Kanitz, " Donau-Bul- 
garien ,} ....... . 140 

THE dikilttas" AT jalar. From Kanitz, " Donau- 
Bulgarien^ . . . . . . -153 

old relief at varna. From Kanitz, " Donau- 
Bulgarien "....... 165 

coins of asen. From Kanitz, " Donau-Bul- 
garien^ ........ 171 

THE BULGARIAN ARMS 1 76 

statue of pan at varna. From Kanitz, "Donau- 
Bulgarien" . . . . . . .191 

old Bulgarian bridge. From Kanitz, "Donau- 
Bulgarien "....... 207 

ROMAN RELIEF AT MADARA. From Kanitz, " Doiiau- 

Bulgarien " . . . . . . .228 

THE SERVIAN ARMS 253 

CORONATION CHURCH OF THE OLD SERVIAN CZARS. 

From Kajiitz, " Serbien " .... 265 

SERVIA UNDER DUSAN, C. 1350 .... 274 

fortress of uzica. From Kanitz, " Serbien " . 279 
milosh obrenovic. From Cunibert, " Essai sur la 

Serbie" 317 

THE OLDEST CHURCH IN SERVIA. FfOlU Kanitz, 

" Serbien " 329 

sarcophagus at drmno. From Kanitz, " Serbien" 344 
rose window at krusevac. From Kanitz, " Ser- 
bien " 350 

ruins of dioclea. From a photo, by Mr. C. A. 

Miller 357 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



XIX 



MONTENEGRIN MILITARY INSIGNIA . . 376, 377, 379 

A TYPICAL BIT OF MONTENEGRIN SCENERY. FlVIJl 

a photo, by Mr. C. A. Miller 
the "Turks' tower," cetinje, in 1848. From 
Sir Gardner Wilkinson, " Dalmatia and Mon- 
tenegro " . 

THE VLADIKA, PETER II., IN CIVIL DRESS. From 

Sir Gardner Wilkinson, u Dalmatia and Mon- 
tenegro " ....... 

THE VLADIKA, PETER II., IN HIS PRIESTLY ROBES. 

From Sir Gardner Wilkinson, " Dalmatia and 
Montenegro "....... 

MAP OF MONTENEGRO 

MAP OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA, PRESENT DAY 

Opposite page 1 



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2 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

the Greek colonies on the West Coast of the Black 
Sea. He calls them " the bravest and most honour- 
able of all the Thracian tribes," and speaks of them 
as endeavouring to oppose the march of the Persian 
King Darius. Thucydides alludes to their prowess 
with the bow and arrow on horseback, and fixes their 
abode on the shore of the Euxine. At that time 
however, they had not yet crossed the Danube, but 
were living in the district south of that river known 
as the Dobrudza. Here, in the fourth century before 
our era, they were attacked by Philip of Macedon, 
who laid siege to one of their towns. The great con- 
queror was about to give the signal for the assault, 
when the gates opened and a long line of priests, clad 
in snow-white' robes with lyres in their hands, came 
forth and approached with song and music the Mace- 
donian camp. Struck with the novelty of the sight, 
Philip bade spare the citadel and took Meda, 
daughter of the Getic king, as his wife. From that 
moment the Getae became allies of Macedon and 
aided Philip in his Scythian campaign. But, at the 
close of his* reign, about the year 340 B.C., they 
crossed the Danube, either from the natural expan- 
sion of their numbers, or in order to escape the 
attacks of some other barbarous tribe. Alexander 
the Great, in the course of his Thracian expedition, 
found himself confronted on the left bank of the 
Danube by an army of Getic horsemen and foot- 
soldiers, who refused to allow him to land. Nothing 
daunted, he waited till night came on, crossed the 
river lower down at daybreak and fell upon the 
Gete, whom he defeated and put to flight. But the 



MA CEDONIA N TN I 'A SIONS. 3 

defeat had no lasting results. The Getae fled to 
their forests ; their conqueror contented himself with 
burning their wooden town. He then returned south- 
wards across the stream, and the Getae were left 
unmolested. But some fifty years later they had 
their revenge. Lysimachus, who succeeded to the 
Thracian dominions of Alexander, attempted to 
chastise them for the assistance which they had 
rendered to the barbarous tribes of Macedonia. But 
he made the mistake of despising his enemy. 
Wearied with long marches, and oppressed with 
thirst in a barren land, his great army was forced to 
surrender to the Getic king, Dromichaetes. The 
victor displayed an unwonted generosity towards the 
vanquished Macedonian. He led him to his capital, 
a place called Helis, which cannot now be identified, 
and treated him as his honoured guest. Lysimachus 
secured his liberty by the payment of a heavy 
ransom, and half a century ago gold pieces, bearing 
his name, were found in Roumania and Transylvania, 
where the natives used them as signet rings and 
ornaments. 

A long period of peace followed this disastrous 
expedition. The Getae or Dacians, as they were 
now more usually called, increased in numbers and 
received from successive bands of immigrants the 
rudiments of civilisation. The cunning slaves, who 
play such an important part in the comedies of 
Plautus and Terence, were usually of Getic extrac- 
tion, and, as those authors copied the Greeks, it is 
evident that there was considerable intercourse 
between Greece and the country beyond the Danube. 



4 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

But with the first appearance of the Romans on the 
confines of Dacia a new era in the history of the 
nation began. The first conflict between the two 
peoples took place in 1 1 1 B.C., when the Roman 
legions, already masters of Macedonia, had advanced 
to the Danube, and found the Dacians assisting the 
tribesmen of the right bank against them. For some 
time, no Roman general thought it desirable to enter 
their territory ; and, when at last a commander 
crossed the Danube, he hesitated to entrust himself 
to the sombre gorges of the Carpathians, where the 
Dacian warriors lurked in readiness to surprise the 
rash invader. If it had not been for the incursions of 
the Dacians into the Roman provinces, a Roman 
occupation might have been indefinitely postponed, 
and the Roumanian race might never have existed. 

But under a king called Bcerebistes, a contemporary 
of Julius Caesar, these raids became so serious, that 
Rome was alarmed for her supremacy in the Balkans. 
Bcerebistes was at the head of a powerful nation, 
which had gradually absorbed all the minor races up 
to the frontier of modern Bavaria, and could put two 
hundred thousand men into the field. His soldiers 
had been seen as far south as the Balkan slopes, and 
were threatening Macedonia and the Dalmatian coast. 
Caesar himself was meditating a Dacian campaign, and 
had actually assembled the troops for it, when the 
dagger of Brutus laid him low. The Dacians would 
have been no unworthy foemen of the great Roman 
captain. They were well armed and well led. They 
knew the use of breast-plates and helmets, and their 
curved swords were scarcely less deadly than the 



tOT/Sd, THE DALIAN KING. 5 

poisoned arrows, which they fired from horseback. 
Bcerebistes offered his aid to Octavius in the civil 
war, which culminated at the battle of Actium, and it 
was owing to the refusal of his assistance by Caesar's 
nephew that the Dacians took sides with Antony at 
that great conflict which decided the fate of the 
Roman world. Taught by experience, Augustus 
conferred upon Bcerebistes' successors the proud title 
of " friend and ally of the Roman people." But this 
" friendship " was of short duration. The Dacians 
again became a terror to the Roman province. 
Horace makes one of the characters in his " Epistles " 
ask, " What is the latest news from Dacia ? " just as a 
modern Roman might ask, " What is the latest from 
Abyssinia ? " The exploits of the Dacian king Cotiso 
are mentioned by contemporary Roman authors, and 
the gossips of the forum would have it that Augustus 
intended to marry the daughter of the terrible bar- 
barian, and thus secure peace for the Empire. When- 
ever the Danube was frozen over, the Dacians crossed 
on the ice and ravaged the Roman province of Mcesia 
the present Bulgaria, far and wide. The fortified 
towns on the Black Sea kept their gates shut night 
and day for fear of these savage warriors, and the 
poet Ovid, who spent seven years of exile among 
them, and acquired such a knowledge of their 
language that he even composed elegiacs in Getic, 
wrote with the utmost respect of their martial 
prowess. The defeat and death of Cotiso, though 
hailed with enthusiasm at Rome, and followed up by 
the construction of forts along the right bank of the 
Danube, were merely temporary checks to the 



6 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

Dacian power. Augustus boasted that he had sub- 
dued the Dacians in their own home and transplanted 
many of them into Bulgaria ; but the nation was not 
conquered, much less was its territory occupied. The 
policy of the early Roman Emperors was to prevent 
the Dacian bands from crossing the river, not to 
annex their country to the Empire. When the civil 
war of 6g A.D. necessitated the withdrawal of the 
legions from Mcesia, a Dacian invasion of that pro- 
vince at once followed, which was repulsed by orders 
of Vespasian. Once again, the sole means of paci- 
fying the people was to transplant them over the 
river. Dacia at this period was little more than a 
desert, and it looked as if the nation were on the 
point of disappearing, when a great chief arose and 
led it to renewed victories. This man was Decebalus 
whose name, " the strength of the Dacians," is the 
most appropriate summary of his career. Possessing 
a scientific as well as a practical knowledge of war- 
fare, he spent the two first years of his reign in 
making preparations for attacking the Roman posses- 
sions south of the Danube. It is said that he even 
attempted to form an alliance with the Parthians 
against the common foe. In 86 A.D. he at last 
crossed the Danube with a disciplined army behind 
him, and drove the Romans to the Balkans before 
him. Two Roman generals succumbed to his arms, 
and the historian Tacitus might well regret the 
defeat of the Roman legions and the capture of a 
Roman standard. At the news of this double reverse 
the Emperor Domitian took the field in person against 
the Dacian monarch. But he cautiously remained 



DECEBALUS AXD THE ROMANS. 



at his headquarters in a small Mcesian town, and 
entrusted his lieutenant, Julianus, with the task of 
bearding Decebalus in his own country. Julianus 
defeated the Dacians at a place called Tapae, the site 
of which is uncertain, and besieged, for the first time 




DECEBALUS. 

in its history, the capital of Sarmizegethusa, the 
modern Varhely. But the exigencies of Roman 
policy necessitated a speed)' peace, for there were 
other dangerous tribes besides the Dacians to be sub- 
dued. Decebalus had no objection to come to terms 
with his enemy, and sent his brother as an envoy to 
the Roman camp. The favourable concessions, which 



8 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

he obtained from Domitian, prove that the Emperor 
was afraid of driving him to extremities. Decebalus 
restored the prisoners, whom he had taken, and re- 
ceived in return the title of king ; while Domitian 
added the surname of " the Dacian " to his other 
designations, and celebrated on his return an empty 
triumph in honour of his vicarious successes. Slaves, 
specially hired for the occasion, personified the van- 
quished in the victor's procession, and the courtly 
poets, Martial and Statius, praised the Imperial 
" clemency which had given back to the Dacians 
their mountain home." A forged letter of Decebalus, 
imploring the Emperor to spare his country, was read 
before the credulous senate, but the shrewd common- 
sense of the people detected the fraud and mocked at 
the " funeral of the Dacian dead." Domitian had, in 
fact, bought his scanty laurels by the promise of an 
annual tribute to Decebalus. 

But the accession of Trajan, in 98 A.D., soon put an 
end to this ignominious arrangement. It is clear 
that the object of the great Emperor, whose name has 
ever since "been connected with the history of Rou- 
mania, was not primarily the conquest of the country, 
but the removal of this irritating burden. The fullest 
preparations were made to show the " barbarians," 
that they were no longer able to insult the majesty of 
Rome with impunity. Six legions were assembled 
at the present town of Kostolac in Servia, where they 
were reviewed by the Emperor. A poet was engaged 
to celebrate the forthcoming exploits of the Roman 
arms in an epic, and Trajan himself, like his proto- 
type Caesar, found time to jot down his impressions 



TRAJAN S TABLET. Q 

of the campaign in a book, now unhappily lost. A 
more durable monument of the war exists to this day 
in the Roman road, begun by Domitian and finished by 
Trajan, along the right bank of the Danube as far as 
a point opposite Orsova. In some places the road was 
hewn through the solid rock, in others it consisted of 
planks fastened over the water along the perpendicu- 
lar face of the cliff. The traveller may still read on 
an ancient tablet opposite Gradina a Latin inscrip- 
tion, 1 blackened by the smoke of centuries, which con- 
tains the name and titles of Trajan. Crossing the 
Danube on two bridges of boats at Kostolac and 
Orsova respectively, the Romans entered Dacia in 
two divisions, while the two flotillas, which they had 
for some time been accustomed to keep on the river, 
supplied them with provisions. No pains were spared 
to ensure success over a nation which had earned the 
distinction of being the " most warlike of men." The 
Dacians themselves recognised that this time they 
had a man to deal with, and sent a gigantic fungus to 
the Emperor, upon which was scratched in Roman 
characters the request that he would leave them alone. 
So great was the dread, which the expedition inspired, 
that the messenger, to whom this strange document 
was entrusted, fell down dead with fright as he 
delivered it into Trajan's hands. 

But the Emperor's march was slow and difficult. 
No fewer than eighteen months were spent in ad- 
vancing sixty-five miles to the spot where the two 
divisions of the army were to meet. The legionaries 

1 When I visited the spot in June, the tablet had just been 
cleaned. — W. M. 



10 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

had to grope their way, as it were, in the dark, 
through a country of which they knew little against 
an enemy, of whom they could see nothing. The 
mountains lent themselves to that guerilla warfare, 
at which the Dacians excelled ; huge boulders of 
rock were rolled down upon the heads of the soldiers 
as they entered the narrow ravines ; showers of arrows 
impeded their progress as they forded the deep 
streams. At Tapae, the spot where Decebalus had 
been defeated fourteen years earlier, they at last met 
the foe in open combat. The victory of the Romans 
was hardly bought, and so severe were their losses 
that the Emperor tore up his own garments to pro- 
vide bandages for the wounded. The invaders now 
marched upon the Dacian capital, which, after a 
desperate engagement, fell into their hands. A great 
booty, including the standard, which had been cap- 
tured by the Dacians in the last war, rewarded the 
Romans for their hardships. Decebalus saw himself 
deserted by his allies, his sister taken prisoner, his 
treasures carried off. He bowed his neck to the yoke, 
resolving to reserve himself for better days. Accom- 
panied by two dignitaries of his court, and followed 
by a crowd of kneeling warriors, he flung himself at 
Trajan's feet. The Emperor dictated peace on his 
own terms. He ordered the king to surrender all his 
arms, to dismiss the Roman deserters, who had joined 
his army, to raze his fortresses and abandon all his 
foreign conquests. Decebalus swore to share the 
friendships and enmities of the Roman people, and 
promised never again to receive a Roman into his 
service. Trajan was contented with what he had 



TRAJAN S BRIDGE. 1 I 

accomplished. Leaving a garrison behind him at 
Sarmizegethusa, he took with him to Rome a Dacian 
embassy, for the ratification of the treaty, and assumed, 
with far more reason than Domitian, the title of 
Dacicus, in memory of his triumph. A letter of the 
younger Pliny tells us how great an impression this 
" first victory over a hitherto invincible enemy " made 
upon the Roman populace. Dacia was regarded as 
finally subdued. 

But there was little finality about Trajan's first 
expedition. Decebalus had only submitted as a 
temporary expedient, and as soon as his conqueror 
had gone, he recommenced his forays, and formed a 
fresh league of tribes against the Roman Empire. 
Trajan resolved that this time he would finally annex 
Dacia to his dominions and have done with these 
troublesome warriors, who had only submitted in 
order the better to attack him. As a first step 
towards the annexation of the country, he ordered 
the construction of a more permanent means of com- 
munication than the bridge of boats, which had served 
to convey his army across the Danube during his 
former campaign. Opposite the present Roumanian 
town of Turnu-Severin there may still be seen in the 
river several piles of the magnificent stone bridge 
which Apollodorus of Damascus, the most famous 
architect of that period, erected for the Emperor in 
104. The bridge originally consisted of twenty 
piers, each 163 feet apart, 14.5 feet high, and 58 feet 
broad. This done, Trajan declared war against 
Decebalus, who endeavoured to rid himself of his 
great enemy by assassination. He had previously 



12 DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

seized the commander of the Roman garrison at 
Sarmizegethusa and refused to give him up, unless 
the Emperor recompensed him for his losses in the 
last war. The brave Roman officer took poison in 
order to relieve Trajan from this dilemma, and the 
scanty ruins of the mausoleum, which his grateful 
master raised to his memory, are still to be seen a 
little to the north of Varhely. 

The second Dacian campaign of Trajan was easier 
than the first. The remembrance of their former 
defeats made many of the Dacians unwilling to risk 
further losses. Decebalus offered to make peace. 
But Trajan replied that he must first lay down his 
arms. The Dacian monarch preferred to die, and 
held out with a mere handful of men against the 
Roman army. No quarter was given on either side ; 
the Roman soldiers cut off the heads of their prisoners 
and stuck them on pikes ; the Dacian women fastened 
their captives' hands behind their backs and applied 
blazing torches to their bare bodies. A final battle 
beneath Jhe walls of the capital ended the war. The 
Dacians set fire to the town and took poison to avoid 
falling into the hands of their enemies. Decebalus, 
tracked by the legionaries to his retreat in the 
mountains, sank exhausted at the foot of a tree ; and 
when the Romans advanced to seize him, plunged a 
dagger into his breast. His head was carried to 
Trajan ; Dacia lay at the mercy of the conqueror. 
By the end of 106 it had become a Roman province. 
The Emperor, after remaining a short time to arrange 
for its future administration, returned to celebrate, by 
what was perhaps the most magnificent spectacle of 



Trajan's column. 



13 



ancient Rome, his final subjugation of the Dacian 
people. From every part of the Roman world con- 
gratulations were showered upon the victor, and 
nearly three centuries later the two Dacian expedi- 
tions of Trajan, occupying only five years together, 
constituted his chief claim to apotheosis. To this 
day, Roumania bears abundant marks of his presence. 
Walls, plains, and meadows are called by his name, 
and the modern Roumanians, proud of their Roman 




BATTLE OF THE ROMANS AND DACIANS. 

{From Trajan's Column.) 

origin, may say in the language of ' Childe Harold,' 
" Still we Trajan's name adore." 

But the most striking memorial of his Dacian con- 
quest is to be seen at Rome. Trajan's Column is an 
epitome in marble of his two campaigns against 
Decebalus, and forms a priceless commentary upon 
the early history of Roumania. From it we learn, 
more vividly than from any printed page, the chief 



H 



DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 



events which we have just described. We see the 
passage of the Roman forces across the Danube on 
the two bridges of boats, and Trajan, seated on a 
platform and surrounded by his officers, addressing 
his army from the Dacian shore. The next relief 
shows us the obstacles encountered on the march ; 
the sappers and miners are at work ; trees are being 
felled; streams bridged and forts built. Then we 




DACIANS SETTING FIRE TO THEIR CAPITAL. 

(From Trajan's Column.) 

have the Dacian envoys, suing in vain for peace, 
and the figure of the Roman Emperor is seen as he 
spares the defenceless. The artist next gives us a 
picture of the Dacian attack ; the natives are clad in 
mantles and . tunics with long sleeves, the nobles 
wearing Phrygian caps of liberty on their heads, such 
as may be seen to-day in the country districts of 



THE DACIAN RELIGION. I 5 

Roumania ; the common soldiers bareheaded with 
no other protection than their flowing locks. We can 
distinguish the uncouth Dacian standards — long 
monsters, with the body of a snake and the head of 
a savage dog, stuck at the end of a pole. Their 
richly decorated oval shields and curved swords 
contrast strangely with the weapons of the Romans. 
Finally, we behold them setting fire to their capital, 
with a look of desperate determination on their 
bearded faces, while from a huge vessel filled with 
poison their chiefs are drinking the fatal draught. 
On the ground some are writhing in their last agony, 
and two corpses are being carried away. To crown 
all, the triumph of Trajan, and the soldiers bearing 
the head of Decebalus, reminded the Roman world 
of the Dacian conqueror's success. More fortunate 
than the bridge over the Danube, the column has 
survived practically intact, and the 2,500 human 
figures, which it contains, are the best proof of the 
skill of Apollodorus, the famous architect. Trajan 
lies buried beneath it, but the piety of the Popes has 
replaced his statue, which stood on the summit, by 
that of St. Peter. 

The evidence of the column and the testimony of 
Latin authors show that the Dacian monarchy had 
reached a considerable degree of civilisation at the 
time of its fall. The government of the country, like 
that of Gaul, was based upon a strongly religious 
feeling, and the Dacians owed their reputation for 
bravery to their belief in the immortality of the soul. 
Herodotus calls them the " Immortals," and tells us 
that they never spoke of " dying," but always of 



1 6 DA CIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 

" rejoining Zalmoxis," their deity. It was this dis- 
regard of death which made them such a terror to 
their enemies. The Dacian knew no fear, either of 
man or of the forces of nature. He obeyed the 
orders of his sovereign and the chief pontiff, who was 
supposed to have inherited the powers of Zalmoxis 
and to be the deity's vicegerent upon earth. This 
personage was the chief counsellor of the monarch, 
and his decisions were received as the voice of a god. 
His influence may be understood by a single example. 
When Bcerebistes became king, one of his desires 
was to stop the drunken habits of his people. He 
accordingly prohibited the use of wine. But, power- 
ful as he was, he could not make his subjects obey 
him. He appealed, in despair, to the chief pontiff, 
who at once ordered every vine in Dacia to be 
destroyed. The order was executed in a single day, 
such was the respect which that ecclesiastic inspired. 
To him Dacia owed its first code of laws and the first 
germs of physical science. But theocratic as was the 
Dacian system of government, no temples were found 
in their land. The simple sanctuaries of their faith 
were placed on the mountain peaks, far removed 
from the dwellings of men. The great river, which 
was their natural bulwark on the south, was for them 
an object of superstitious reverence, and Roman poets 
noticed their picturesque custom of drinking the 
water of the Danube on the eve of a campaign, and 
vowing that they Would never return except as con- 
querors. The nation was organised on an aristocratic 
basis. The lower orders, consisting of common 
soldiers, artisans, and peasants, wore their hair long, 



HABITS OF THE DACIANS. \J 

as we have seen from Trajan's Column, while the 
nobles, from whose ranks the king and the chief 
priest were drawn, were distinguished from the 
common herd by the bonnets which covered their 
heads. They formed a privileged class, presided at 
religious ceremonies, were the leaders of the people 
in war and peace, acted as judges and teachers, and 
watched over the preservation of ancient customs. 
A highly conservative force, we find these " bonneted 
men," as the Romans called them, in frequent opposi- 
tion to the king, if he showed any inclination to grant 
popular reforms. They were, in fact, the predecessors 
of those Roumanian boyards, or landed aristocracy, 
whom we shall have occasion to mention later on. 

Battle and the chase were the most serious business 
of the Dacians' existence, and Ovid, who knew them 
well, said that their appearance reminded him of 
Mars himself. But they had other and more peace- 
ful activities. Agriculture was of such importance 
even at that early date, that a great official was told 
off to watch over it. The studs of the Dacian 
monarchs were deservedly famous, and the country 
produced large herds of cattle. The gold and silver 
mines of Transylvania were worked before the 
Roman occupation, and yielded the precious metals, 
which were manufactured into ornaments by skilled 
native artificers. That Dacia carried on a consider- 
able trade with the outside world is proved by the 
number of foreign coins found there ; its situation on 
the Danube naturally favoured the growth of its 
commerce. But there were few towns, for the popu- 
lation was scattered. Sarmizegethusa was practically 

3 



i8 



DACIA BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 



the only city of importance, and the other places 
mentioned by the Roman historians were nothing but 
fortified camps, where the country folk sought refuge 
in time of war, or else military posts on the banks of 
rivers or at the entrance to mountain passes. The 
inhabitants dwelt in wooden huts, or even in holes in 
the ground, which, under the name of bordei, were 
found in Roumania as late as the middle of the 
present century. In short, Dacia, as it was before 
the Roman conquest, preserved several characteristics 
of the country, which has derived its name from the 
conquering race. 




II. 



THE ROMANS IN ROUMANIA. 



(a.d. 106-274.) 



The Roman province of Dacia, which was consti- 
tuted upon the ruins of the kingdom of Decebalus, 
was considerably larger than modern Roumania. 
For the Dacian realm had included Transylvania 
and other portions of what is now the Austro- 
Hungarian Dual Monarchy, and the circumference 
of the province was thirteen hundred miles. The 
fact is of more than antiquarian importance, for the 
so-called " Daco-Roumanian " movement, which has 
lately given so much trouble to Austrian statesmen, 
is based upon the racial and historical unity of the 
Roumanians of Transylvania and the Roumanians 
of the kingdom. 

The ravages of war had decimated the natives, and 
in order to people so large an area it was necessary 
to import colonists from the Roman Empire. Trajan 
summoned to Dacia the veterans of his legions, the 
landless proletarians of Rome, the venturesome 
inhabitants of Spain and Gaul. Italy doubtless 



20 THE ROMANS IN R0UMAN1A. 

furnished the bulk of the immigrants, for at the 
present day the Roumanian language is closely 
akin to Latin. Some colonists were attracted by 
glowing reports of the Dacian gold mines, others 
expected to find their El Dorado in the administra- 
tion of the new province. Lawyers and doctors 
were, of course, necessary to the civilisation of the 
" poor barbarians," and both professions were over- 
crowded at Rome. It is not necessary to assume, 
as some writers have done, that the Romans regarded 
Dacia much as our forefathers regarded Botany Bay, 
and that the ancestors of the present Roumanians 
were convicts. We can easily imagine that there 
would be a general rush for lands in the newly- 
conquered country, and possibly the first settlers 
were not drawn from the first families of the Im- 
perial City. The new arrivals intermarried with the 
survivors of the Dacian race, and the offspring of 
these Daco-Roman alliances perpetuated the cha- 
racteristics of both parents. Hence it is that after 
a period of sixteen centuries, we find the curious 
phenomenon of a nation speaking a " soft bastard 
Latin " of its own, and bearing in its life and in its 
history the traces of its Latin origin, yet separated 
by hundreds of miles from any other branch of the 
Latin race. 

The peace, which followed the triumph of the 
Roman arms, assisted the amalgamation of the new 
and the old elements in the population. Those 
Dacians, who had left their country rather than 
live under the foreign yoke, gradually returned, 
when they saw that their fellow-countrymen were 



ROMAN CLLTURE IN DACIA. 21 

well treated by the conquerors. The famous edict 
of the Emperor Caracalla, which extended the 
citizenship of Rome to every inhabitant of the 
Empire, placed the " barbarian " on an equal foot- 
ing with the true-born Roman in the eye of the 
law, and reconciled him to the loss of his inde- 
pendence. Commerce and agriculture flourished, 
new mines were opened, new towns rose with the 
rapidity of a western city in America. Palaces, 
roads, baths, all the usual appendages of Roman 
life, sprang into existence. Dacia merited the epi- 
thet of " blessed," which was ascribed to her on 
Roman medals ; all over Roumania the indelible 
marks of the Roman occupation can be seen at 
this day. The Roman monuments in the academy 
at Bucharest show what a hold Latin civilisation 
had gained on the country during the 168 years 
of the Roman occupation. The national religion, 
which might have been a dangerous obstacle to 
the progress of Roman ideas, became merged in 
the elastic creed of the conquerors. The mysterious 
grotto of Zalmoxis was closed ; the solemn banquets 
of his worshippers ceased; and Jupiter took the 
place of the Dacian deity in the religious life of 
the people. All over Dacia the language of the 
Romans was spoken before a generation had elapsed. 
It was not the Latin of Cicero or Tacitus, but the 
homely idiom of the populace and the peasantry, 
modified by an admixture of Dacian words. Much 
as in Gaul the Celtic idiom disappeared before the 
Latin, so in Roumania the conquerors introduced 
their own speech. A mediaeval Pope fourteen hun- 



22 THE ROMANS IN ROU MANIA. 

dred years later remarked that the people of Wal- 
lachia " even now speak the Roman language ; " and 
the German poet, Martin Opitz, who flourished 
early in the seventeenth century, describes them as 
" almost made on the Roman model." Those who 
are acquainted with Latin or Italian will even nowa- 
days find many familiar phrases in the Roumanian 
language. Apa (water) is practically the same as 
the Latin aqua and Italian acqua. Pane (bread) is 
the same in both Italian and Roumanian ; auru 
(gold) is the Latin aurum ; portu (harbour), the 
Latin portus ; cina (supper), the Latin and Italian 
cena ; mesa (table), the Latin mensa ; vino (wine), 
verde (green), strada (street), and sera (evening), ap- 
pear in precisely the same form in both languages 
—that of modern Rome and that of modern Rou- 
mania. Hundreds of words in daily use at Bucha- 
rest display their Latin origin in every letter, or 
else conceal it beneath the thinnest of disguises. 
The wonder is that, after such a long lapse of time, 
the language should have degenerated so little from 
its prototype. 

The Dacians gradually lost, under the influence of 
Western civilisation, those fierce characteristics which 
had made them the terror of the provinces beyond 
the Danube. Occasionally, we hear of disturbances, 
and in one instance, during the reign of Antoninus 
Pius, of a serious revolt. But, generally speaking, 
after about the year 120, when Hadrian meditated 
the withdrawal of his legions from Dacia and the 
destruction of Trajan's bridge across the Danube, 
the Roman occupation was firmly established in the 



FIRST GOTHIC INVASION* 2$ 

country. Hadrian's scheme of evacuation was due 
to his desire to keep the barbarians out of Mcesia, 
and his successors for the next century and a half 
followed the alternative policy of making Dacia an 
outpost of the Empire against the attacks of savage 
hordes. Three great military roads, still visible in 
many places, united the principal towns of the 
province ; while a fourth, called by Trajan's name, 
traversed the depths of the Carpathians and entered 
Transylvania by the Turnu Rosa or Rothenthurm 
Pass. Two legions were usually stationed in Dacia, 
and their headquarters, together with the seat of 
government, were fixed at Apulum, the modern 
Karlsburg in Transylvania. On the ruins of the 
old Dacian capital of Sarmizegethusa rose the 
stately Roman town of Ulpia Trajana, whose 
memory is still preserved by a few carved stones 
and a heap of broken pillars. 

With the advent of the third century the in- 
cursions of the barbarians became more threatening. 
Caracalla, about 212, defeated a horde of invaders, 
and erected as a trophy of victory the town of 
Karakal, which still preserves his name. The 
" tower of Severus," Turnu-Severin, on the Danube, 
marks the defeat of the tribes of Ouadi and Marco- 
manni a few years later. But a more deadly enemy 
now appeared upon the frontiers. In 247 we hear 
of the first invasion of the Goths. Some writers, 
relying on the similarity of the names, have put 
forward the theory that these Goths were none 
other than the Getae or Dacians, the direct lineal 
descendants of the people, who had withdrawn 



24 THE ROMANS IN ROUMANIA. 

from Dacia at the time of the Roman conquest. 
Byron has adopted it in the famous passage, where 
he calls upon the Goths to avenge the Dacian 
gladiator, " butchered to make a Roman holiday." 
The idea is picturesque, and it is in accordance 
with the requirements of poetic justice that the 
third and fourth generations of Roman colonists 
should suffer for their forefathers' deeds at the 
hands of a Dacian tribe. But there is no real 
proof of the hypothesis, and the connection between 
Goths and Getse rests upon mere theory. From 
this year the old historians of Roumania date the 
decline of the province. At first, however, the Goths 
simply used Dacia as a stepping-stone to Mcesia, on 
the other side of the Danube, and did not tarry by 
the way. But they soon found the one province as 
attractive as the other, and between 247 and 268 
there were six invasions, one of which cost a Roman 
Emperor his life. The shrewdest Romans already 
regarded their Dacian province as lost, and a Roman 
pretender attempted for a moment amid the general 
confusion to claim descent from Decebalus, and re- 
vive the Dacian kingdom in his own person. The 
scheme failed, and the great victory of the Emperor 
Claudius over the Goths at Naissus, the modern 
Nisch in Servia, in 269, while it rid Mcesia of their 
presence, left Dacia still at their mercy. The Roman 
legions, entrenched in the natural fastnesses of the 
Carpathians, could protect themselves, but were 
powerless to save the peaceful inhabitants of the 
plains. The next Emperor, Aurelian, resolved to 
evacuate the province, which he could no longer 



EVACUATION OF DACIA. 25 

hold, and fall back upon the Danube as his first 
line of defence. About the year 274 the Roman 
garrisons withdrew across the river, and took with 
them all the Daco-Roman colonists who cared to 
follow them. South of the Danube, in parts of 
what are now Servia and Bulgaria, a new home 
preserved under the name of " Aurelian's Dacia," or 
Dacia Aureliani, the memory of the old. Dacia, 
north of the Danube, had been the last province to 
be added to the Roman Empire and the first to go. 
Yet the Roman influence had not ceased with the 
Roman occupation. Many of the inhabitants pre- 
ferred to remain behind, dreading, in the phrase of 
Gibbon, " exile more than a Gothic master." They 
were no longer a military outpost of the Empire, 
but they were in a sense the pioneers of Latin 
culture among their barbarous rulers. For a brief 
space we shall see Dacia, north of the Danube, once 
more incorporated with the Empire ; but it never 
entirely lost, even in the darkest ages, the enduring 
traces of the Latin race. 




III. 



THE BARBARIANS IN ROUMANIA 



(a.d. 274-about 1250.) 



For the next thousand years from the evacuation 
of Dacia by the Romans, the history of that country 
is one long and confused series of barbarian invasions. 
One horde of savage tribes succeeds to another, some- 
times merely marching through the land on its way 
to the South or West, at other times driving out the 
occupants and settling in their homes. During the 
period frgm the close of the third to the middle of 
the thirteenth century Roumania presents a number 
of kaleidoscopic changes, which leave no durable 
impression upon history. Tribes with names as un- 
couth as their manners appear and disappear by 
tarn, leaving scarcely a trace behind them. The 
one permanent feature amidst this world of change 
was the Daco-Roman element, which had remained 
in the country after the withdrawal of the Roman 
officials. The native proverb truly say, "the Rou- 
manian never dies." In that corner of South- 
eastern Europe, as in Italy, in Spain, in France, 

26 



THE GOTHS IN ROUMANIA. 2J 

the Latin race manifested its enduring vitality. 
The torrent of barbarian invasion swept over it 
again and again, but it was not washed away, and 
when the floods at last subsided, it re-appeared 
above the waters just as it was before they rose. 

The Gothic supremacy, which lasted for a century, 
was a period of comparative tranquillity. The victors 
lost much of their ferocity by contact with the 
vanquished; the natives pursued their agricultural 
pursuits without interference, and found ample occu- 
pation in cultivating the lands which their fellow- 
countrymen had abandoned when they migrated 
southwards. Once, for a moment, the exiles re- 
turned in the train of the Roman Emperor Con- 
stantine, who not only repulsed the attacks of the 
Goths upon the provinces south of the Danube 
about 330, but built a bridge across the river, like 
Trajan, though much lower down, between the 
present Bulgarian town of Nicopolis and the modern 
Roumanian village of Turnu-Magurele. The re- 
mains of the bridge still mark this second and 
merely temporary occupation by the Romans. Con- 
stantine, indeed, assumed the title of " restorer of 
Dacia," and boasted that he had repeated the ex- 
ploit of Trajan. But he contented himself with com- 
pelling the Goths to furnish a force of auxiliaries, 
and soon withdrew from a position which he could 
not maintain. But his victory had one important 
effect; it introduced the doctrines of Christianity 
among the Goths. It is possible that the Daco- 
Roman colonists had already been converted, for 
we hear of a Dacian bishop at an early council of 



28 THE BARBARIANS IN ROUMANIA. 

the Church. But their Gothic masters now for the 
first time embraced the new faith. By 360 Dacia 
was a part of Christendom. 

The second batch of barbarian invaders was much 
more terrible than the first. The Goths were mild 
and civilised as compared with the savage Huns, who 
entered Roumania in 375. The "shrill voice, the 
uncouth gestures and the strange deformity" of the 
Huns, their meals of wild grass or raw meat, their 
weird incantations and their pitiless cruelty, filled the 
inhabitants with horror and alarm. Many of the Goths 
were allowed by the Romans to settle on the other 
side of the Danube, while the natives either remained 
in the plains of Roumania or retreated to the fast- 
nesses of the Carpathians, where they lived for cen- 
turies uncontaminated by the wild races which seized 
their country. The defeat of the Huns by the Roman 
Emperor Theodosius I. about 378 was only a tem- 
porary relief. The whole aspect of the land changed 
under its new masters ; all settled habits of life dis- 
appeared, and nomad tribes ravaged the Danubian 
provinces" almost without intermission. Then the 
" scourge of God," as Attila has been called, fell upon 
those unhappy regions. Modern Bulgaria, as well as 
modern Roumania, succumbed to his armies, and 
the Romans acknowledged him as the ruler of the 
latter country. But his own allies turned against him 
at a critical moment. The Gepidae, a Gothic race, 
under their King Ardaric, overthrew his dominion in 
Roumania and established there a new kingdom ; 
Attila perished in 453, and with his death the Huns 
vanished from the Danube. 



THE LOMBARDS AND AVARS. 29 

The Gepidae, the third of the barbarian races which 
occupied Roumania, maintained their hold upon the 
country for a century, and gave it their own name of 
Gepidia. They are the most obscure of all these 
motley bands, and we know little about them beyond 
the fact of their existence. At one moment they 
were at war with the Roman Empire, at another they 
were its allies. At one period, Justinian succeeded in 
capturing from them several towns, and even re- 
assumed Constantine's old title of the " restorer of 
Dacia." But two far more formidable foes appeared 
about the middle of the sixth century in the persons 
of the Lombards and Avars, the former coming from 
the Baltic coast, the latter from the plains of Asia. 
United by the common desire for plunder, under the 
leadership of Alboin, these two tribes speedily over- 
threw the power of the Gepidse, with such complete 
success that the vanquished race henceforth disappears. 
The Lombards did not stay long in the land. Accept- 
ing the invitation of the Emperor Justinian to enter 
his service, they crossed the Danube, leaving Rou- 
mania to the Avars. The latter ruled more or less 
continuously in the country for eighty years, though 
the seat of their empire was on the site of Attila's 
ancient capital in the midst of the great Hungarian 
plain, and not in Roumania itself. But they included 
it in their dominions until their defeat by the Emperor 
Heraclius in their campaign against Constantinople 
in 626. Their influence in the Balkan Peninsula never 
recovered the effects of that crushing blow, and by the 
middle of the seventh century Roumania knew them 
no more. Five different hordes of barbarians had 



30 THE BARBARIANS IN ROUMANIA. 

swept over that unfortunate country since the Romans 
left, and still the descendants of the old Roman 
colonists remained in their mountain retreat, little 
affected by the waves which, one after another, had 
covered their land. 

The Emperor had been aided in his victory over 
the Avars by the Bulgarian chief Kurt, or Kuvrat, a 
former vassal of the Avar king. The origin and early 
history of the Bulgarians will be narrated later, and 
it is therefore only necessary to state in this place 
their connection with Roumania. Kuvrat and his 
successors obtained power in the old Dacian province 
north of the Danube, as well as in what is now known 
as Bulgaria ; and in the reign of their powerful chief- 
tain Krum, who flourished about the year 810, they 
occupied a large part of Roumania. During the first 
Bulgarian Empire, which lasted from 893 to 1018, 
Roumania was largely in Bulgarian hands. The 
towns and petty communities, which had been founded 
by the Daco-Roman inhabitants after the withdrawal 
of the Avars westward, were more or less dependent 
upon the»Bulgarian Czars, though governed by chiefs 
of their own. Such was the condition of Roumania 
when a fresh swarm of invaders descended upon it, 
and for the first time in Balkan history the name of 
the Hungarians meets the eye. 

This warlike race, which has just been celebrating 
the thousandth anniversary of the kingdom which it 
founded, took up its abode in the eastern part of 
Roumania about 839. The strange habits and fierce 
disposition of the early Hungarians made them a 
terror to all their neighbours ; their career of devasta- 



MIGRATION OF THE HUNGARIANS. 3 I 

tion recalled the memory of Attila's campaigns. 
Their food was the raw flesh of animals ; their drink 
the milk of mares or the blood of their enemies. 
Fortunately for Roumania they did not remain there 
long. The Bulgarian monarch, Simeon, then at the 
zenith of his power, inflicted a severe defeat upon those 
who had dared to cross the Danube and approach his 
Balkan capital. During their temporary absence on 
a western campaign he devastated their settlements 
in Bessarabia, and, finding their home destroyed, they 
wandered westward again, and made the present 
country of Hungary their headquarters. In the 
eleventh century they annexed Transylvania to the 
Hungarian kingdom, to which, after various vicissi- 
tudes of fortune, it still belongs. 

While the Hungarians migrated to the West across 
the Carpathians, another tribe, called Patzinakitai, 
had entered the Roumanian land. We know little of 
this race beyond the fact that its leaders made fre- 
quent incursions into Bulgaria, and even dared to defy 
the majesty of the Byzantine Empire. Powerful in 
Roumania in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the 
Patzinakitai are heard of two hundred years later, 
when they became merged in the Hungarian nation, 
leaving no traces of their separate existence behind 
them. Another barbarian tribe, the Kumani, had 
driven them from their seats on the Danube. 

After the First Bulgarian Empire had fallen, the old 
Dacian province north of the Danube gradually came 
under the rule of the Kumani, and received from them 
the name of Rumania. It was an era of comparative 
peace for the inhabitants of that distressful country. 



32 THE BARBARIANS IN ROUMANIA. 

The barbarian inroads had ceased, and the descen- 
dants of the old Daco-Roman colonists could culti- 
vate their farms without disturbance upon paying a 
tribute to their masters. The commercial importance 
of Roumania became recognised abroad, and a diploma 
of 1 1 34 acknowledges the flourishing condition of the 
region round the town of Berlad, not far from the 
Pruth, where a sort of democratic commonwealth 
existed under an elected magistrate. There the pro- 
ducts of the Levant were exchanged for the mer- 
chandise of Russia, Hungary, and Bohemia, and a 
brisk business was carried on with the Greek traders 
of the Black Sea. 

During this period the name of the Wallachs first be- 
comes prominent. Treatises without end have been 
written on the origin of this remarkable race, which 
gave its own designation to one of the two Danubian 
principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, which are 
united in the modern Roumanian kingdom. The 
most probable view is that the Wallachs were none 
other than our old friends the descendants of the 
Daco-Roman colonists, who in the course of ages 
reappear under this new name. Some of them re- 
mained in Dacia, north of the Danube ; others mi- 
grated to " Aurelian's Dacia," south of it, and this 
accounts for the existence of Wallachs in Bulgaria as 
well as in Roumania. In the Middle Ages the 
descent of these people from the old Romans, who 
had colonised Dacia, was generally recognised, and in 
the next part of this work we shall find a Bulgarian 
monarch dubbing himself " Emperor of the Bulgarians 
and Wallachs," This has been interpreted as mean- 



END OF BARBARIAN INROADS. 33 

ing that he was lord of a part of what is now Rou- 
mania, as well as Bulgaria, and a " Wallacho-Bulgarian 
Empire " has been constructed on this hypothesis. 
But what the phrase really means is that the " Wal- 
lachs," over whom the Bulgarian Czar claimed 
authority, were not those of Roumania, but those of 
Bulgaria; In that sense he was " Emperor of the 
Wallachs," but he was never head of an empire 
which included the Wallachs north of the Danube, 
who were at that time subject to the rule of the 
Kumani. The theory arose at a later period when 
the only Wallachs whom people knew were the 
natives of the principality of Wallachia. The Wal- 
lachs, who are first mentioned by that name at the 
beginning of the eleventh century as allies of the 
Byzantine Emperor Basil, " the Bulgar-slayer," are 
frequently alluded to after that date, and the descrip- 
tions given of them clearly prove that they were of 
Roman origin. 

The long era of barbarian rule in Roumania was 
drawing at last to a close. The Kumani, who were 
converted to Christianity in 1227, ceased to be dan- 
gerous soon afterwards, and succumbed to the attacks 
of the Mongol Tartars about 1240. This was the 
final irruption of savage hordes into the country. 
The only other foreigners who exercised power there 
at this period were men of a very different stamp, the 
Teutonic Knights and the Knights of St. John, who 
for a score of years at the beginning of the thirteenth 
century obtained grants of Roumanian land from the 
King of Hungary. But the stay of these military 
orders was as short as that of the Tartar hordes. The 

4 



34 THE BARBARIANS IN ROUMANIA. 

former soon quarrelled with the King of Hungary and 
had to leave, the latter, after making the old Dacian 
province a desert in less than three years, migrated 
to Russia and troubled the Balkan states no more. 

The land had, indeed, rest. For a thousand years, 
since the Roman legions left, it had been the prey 
of one set of invaders after another. The lamp of 
history sheds but little light upon the gloom of this 
long period. We can see in the dim distance the 
figures of the barbarians moving in lengthy proces- 
sion across the scene, but we cannot discern their 
features or observe their gestures. From this point 
we are able to see more clearly the leading actors in 
the drama. With the foundation of the two princi- 
palities of Moldavia and Wallachia in the thirteenth 
century, a new epoch of Roumanian history begins. 
Then, for the first time, the Roumanian people 
attempted to establish an independent national exist- 
ence. True, it was not long before the all-conquering 
Turks subjected them too to the overlordship of the 
Sultan. But the national sentiment, which had been 
awakened, was never wholly extinguished. History 
possesses few instances of a nation preserving its own 
individuality so steadfastly and so long. Like those 
rivers in the Balkan Peninsula, which suddenly dis- 
appear beneath the mountains and as suddenly issue 
forth unpolluted miles away, the Roumanian race pur- 
sued for centuries a hidden course only to emerge 
with undiminished vigour at the end. 



IV. 



THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 



(1290 — 1 601.) 



After the departure of the Tartar hordes about 
the middle of the thirteenth century, the Roumanians 
of the mountains gradually descended into the plains 
and occupied the lands, which their forefathers had 
abandoned centuries earlier. For a generation after 
the last of the barbarians had gone, no settled govern- 
ment seems to have existed in the country, though 
we hear of petty chiefs, who exercised authority 
over their immediate neighbours. But in 1290 a 
Roumanian leader, named Radou Negrou, or Rudolph 
the Black, came down from the Carpathians and 
established his sway over Wallachia. A little later, 
a Roumanian colony, which had made its home in 
Transylvania, sought to escape from the yoke of the 
Hungarians, to whom that country belonged, by 
migrating to Moldavia. A picturesque legend tells 
us how Dragoche, the leader of this band, halted one 
day on the banks of a stream, which flowed through 
a charming region, abounding in game. Here the 



36 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

chief resolved to remain, so he christened the river 
Moldava, and the land Moldavia after his faithful 
hound, Molda. Such is the legendary account of 
the foundation of the two Danubian principalities of 
Wallachia and Moldavia, which continued to exist in 
one form or another, until their union under a single 
ruler in the present century. 

The early princes have not left much mark upon 
history. Radou Negrou and his first five successors, 
whose reigns together fill about a century, were 
chiefly occupied in repelling the claims of the kings 
of Hungary to their newly-constituted state and 
resisting the efforts of the Popes to convert them 
to the Roman Catholic faith. But the matrimonial 
alliances, which they made with the Servian monarchs 
at a time when Servia was at its zenith, show that 
they must have been personages of considerable influ- 
ence. The Moldavian rulers were simultaneously 
engaged in throwing off the last vestiges of Hun- 
garian authority, and in extending their dominions 
towards the Black Sea. But in 1386 a strong man 
arose in. Wallachia, who is known in the annals of 
his country as Mirtschea the Old, or the Great. Like 
several Balkan rulers, to whom the latter epithet has 
been applied, Mirtschea obtained the throne by means 
of a horrible domestic tragedy. It is said that he 
killed his brother and seized his crown. But such 
deeds of violence were so common in that age that 
they attracted little notice, while the appearance of 
a new and terrible enemy in the country demanded 
the presence of a vigorous ruler in Wallachia. In 
1 39 1 the Turks for the first time crossed the Danube, 




MIRTSCHEA THE GREAT. 



3K THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

Already the Roumanians had come in contact with 
their future masters south of that river. Nearly thirty 
years earlier a Roumanian contingent had assisted 
the Serbs in their disastrous attempt to recapture 
Adrianople from the Mussulmans, and Roumanian 
soldiers fought by the side of their fellow-Christians 
on the fatal field of Kossovo, where the Servian 
Empire fell in 1389. The Sultan Bajazet sent an 
army across the Danube to punish Mirtschea for this 
act of hostility. Mirtschea, weakened by the destruc- 
tion of a large part of his army at Kossovo, was 
defeated, captured, and sent for a time as a prisoner 
to Broussa in Asia Minor. He was, however, soon 
set free on condition of paying an annual tribute to 
the Turks. On the registers of the Sublime Porte 
Wallachia is inscribed as a tributary state as far back 
as 1 39 1. This "first capitulation," as it has been 
called, provided that " the country should be governed 
by its own laws, and that its ruler should have the 
power of making war and peace." But the document 
proceeds to state that " in return for Our great con- 
descension in having accepted this ray ah amongst 
the other subjects of Our Empire, he will be bound 
to pay into Our Treasury, every year, the sum of 
six thousand red piastres of the country." But 
Mirtschea did not long remain the obedient vassal 
of the Sultan. He made an alliance with his old 
enemy, the King of Hungary, against the common 
foe, and the two allies took part in the great battle 
of Nicopolis in 1396, when the Turks gained a signal 
victory over the fine flower of the Christian chivalry. 
Recognising that all was lost, Mirtschea withdrew to 



DEATH OF MIRTSCHEA, 39 

his own dominions, where the Turks soon followed 
him. But this time they were not successful. The 
Wallachian army routed them with such slaughter 
that they retired, and the defeat and capture of the 
Sultan Bajazet by Timour the Tartar at Angora a 
few years later gave rise to a disputed succession, 
which was most favourable to the Roumanian cause. 
Mirtschea, who was not only a good soldier but a 
clever diplomatist, played off one Turkish pretender 
against another till the accession of Mohammed I. 
reunited the scattered forces of the Ottoman Empire 
and forced him to submit. For the second time 
Wallachia bowed before a Turkish suzerain, while 
preserving her local independence. Moldavia, more 
fortunate because more remote, had hitherto escaped 
the Ottoman yoke. But she had been forced to 
acknowledge the overlordship of her Northern neigh- 
bour, the King of Poland, who regarded her chief, or 
vo'ivode, as his vassal. 

Mirtschea died in 141 8, not long after this second 
submission to the Turks. Had he been born at a 
period when they were less powerful, he might have 
founded a strong kingdom. But, like all the other 
minor monarchs of his age, he had to yield before the 
invincible Janissaries. His countrymen cherish his 
memory, and one of the poets of modern Roumania 
has sung how 

" The aged Mirtschea, firm and undismayed, 
With his braves, a handful, meets the furious raid." 

The next quarter of a century, in both Wallachia 
and Moldavia, was marked by civil wars, which dis- 



4o the two Principalities. 

tracted the principalities when they ought to have 
been preparing for a struggle against the Turks. In 
both of them the law of succession to the throne was 
the cause of great mischief. There was no fixed 
system of heredity, but every member of the reigning 
family had the right to succeed if elected by the 
nation, represented by an assembly of great nobles 
and clergy. If the last prince had only one son, 
all went smoothly ; but if he had more than one, 
the land was honeycombed with intrigues, and there 
were as many parties as members of the princely 
family. Nor was that all. When one of the candi- 
dates had at last seated himself on the throne, he 
often found it necessary to secure the support of some 
stronger power to keep him there. Thus, Moldavia 
became the shuttlecock of the rival sovereigns of 
Poland and Hungary. Sometimes the competing 
candidates for the throne divided the country between 
them, and thus the confusion was increased. At one 
period we find three different princes reigning in 
Moldavia alone, all ready to purchase power, such 
as it was, at any price. " We cannot defend our- 
selves," said the advisers of one weak Moldavian 
ruler about this time, " we must bow our heads before 
the accursed thing." But in 1456 and 1457 two 
strong princes ascended the thrones of the princi- 
palities ; these were Vlad "the Impaler" or "the 
Devil," in Wallachia, and Stephen the Great in 
Moldavia. 

The hideous surname, which history has bestowed 
upon this Wallachian prince, was fully deserved. No 
man, even in that age, was so cruel. Contemporary 




STEPHEN THE GREAT OF MOLDAVIA. 



42 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

writers describe him as a tiger, who thirsted for 
human blood. In six years he put twenty thousand 
persons to death by the most horrible tortures — a 
record which it would be hard to surpass even in the 
sanguinary annals of the Orient. But Vlad not only 
craved the blood of his victims ; he took a fiendish 
delight in mocking their agonies when under torture. 
His cruelty had, at least, the effect of suppressing 
brigandage and intimidating the disloyal nobles. 
When the Sultan sent an army against him, not a 
single man of them dared to desert him, although 
his brother was on the side of the Turks. Foreign 
merchants had no fear of travelling with large sums of 
money through a land where thieves met with such 
a terrible fate. Vlad chafed under the ignominy to 
which the puny successors of Mirtschea had sub- 
mitted, and refused to send the annual tribute of five 
hundred youths, which Wallachia was expected to 
furnish for the corps of Janissaries. Mohammed II. 
headed an army against this audacious ruler, but 
Vlad, disguised as a Turk, spied out the Turkish 
camp and rltterly routed the invaders, impaling those 
whom he took prisoners. But he did not long keep 
his crown. Stephen the Great of Moldavia, whom 
he had placed on the throne of that country, attacked 
him in 1462 while he was pursuing the Turks, and 
forced him to seek refuge in Hungary. Wallachia 
came under the influence of the sister-principality 
after his flight, and, though he was afterwards restored, 
he fell by the hand of an assassin. Moldavia rued 
ere long the fatal blunder of her prince in dethroning 
the man, who, in spite of his cruelties, had been a 



STEPHEN THE GREAT. 43 

bulwark of the two principalities against the Turks, 
soon to become masters of both. 

Stephen the Great, who owed his crown to Vlad 
the Impaler, spent most of his long reign of nearly 
fifty years in constant wars, which he believed to be 
the best means of keeping up the courage of his 
people. As he was generally successful, he was very 
popular, and his physician has given a glowing de- 
scription of the prosperity of Moldavia under his 
warlike rule. He acted on the principle of dealing 
with his enemies singly. Confident in his star, and 
convinced that sooner or later the Turks would invade 
his country, he preferred that the struggle should take 
place during his lifetime. He had incurred their 
enmity by deposing their puppet, who had followed 
Vlad on the Wallachian throne, and endeavoured 
accordingly to form a league of Christian powers 
against them. At Racova in 1475 the first battle 
between a Moldavian and a Turkish army was fought. 
By the device of placing a number of trumpeters in 
a wood, Stephen made the Turks believe that they 
had not one but two armies in front of them. The 
complete victory, which he won, excited the intense 
admiration of his contemporaries, who addressed him 
as the " fittest chief of a European coalition against 
Islam." 

The Venetians were so impressed with his im- 
portance that they despatched a special envoy to his 
Court, and the Pope wrote to him as a defender of 
Christendom. But the next year the Turks had 
their revenge on a battlefield, which was henceforth 
called Valea Alba, or "the White Valley," from the 



44 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

number of Moldavian soldiers whose bones lay 
bleaching there. Stephen, nothing daunted, collected 
a fresh force a few years later, and chased the enemy 
from the country. The story goes that his mother 
bade him return to his army, when he was inclined to 
despair of victory, and a Roumanian poet has repre- 
sented her as urging him to — 

" Hasten to thy brave ones ; for thy country fall ; 
Then a mother's love with wreaths shall deck thy pall." 

Stephen returned at her bidding, and conquered. 
But he was wise enough to foresee the ultimate 
triumph of the Ottomans, and on his deathbed is 
said to have advised his son Bogdan to make a treaty 
with the Porte. After this advice he secured the 
succession by ordering the instant decapitation of the 
nobles whom he suspected of intriguing against his 
successor. This last act of a dying man sufficiently 
shows how little men thought of such crimes in Rou- 
mania four centuries ago. The careers of Vlad the 
Impaler and Stephen the Great are characteristic of 
their era. 

Moldavia now speedily made submission to the 
Turks. Stephen's father had paid tribute as far back 
as 1456 ; Stephen's son, who succeeded in 1504, con- 
cluded an arrangement with the Sultan nine years 
later, in which he promised to pay an annual sum of 
1 1 ,000 piastres, forty falcons, and forty mares, besides 
pledging himself to assist his suzerain in time of 
need. In return, the Sultan guaranteed the integrity 
of the country, forbade the erection of mosques 



POWER OF THE TURKS. 45 

and the residence of Turks within it, and granted 
the people the right to elect their own princes. But 
the subjection of Moldavia remained merely nominal 
until another of her rulers, driven out of the country 
by dissensions, purchased the aid of the Turks by 
further concessions. Not only was the tribute in- 
creased, but a force of five hundred Turkish horsemen 
was sent to guard the prince, whose son was detained 
at Constantinople as a hostage for his good behaviour. 
The degenerate descendants of Mirtschea had done 
the same in Wallachia, and the system of buying the 
support of the Sultan made that sovereign the arbiter 
of Roumania's destinies. One zealous candidate for 
the throne even adopted the Mahommedan faith, in 
order to curry favour with his patrons. As long as 
Hungary preserved her independence, her influence 
was usually exerted against that of the Turks ; but, 
when she too fell before them, they were absolute 
masters of the Danubian principalities, and could 
make and re-make princes as they chose. The ladies 
of the Sultan's harem were won over by the wives of 
ambitious Roumanians, and used their insidious in- 
fluence with their Imperial master for this or that 
party in the principalities. All the artifices of 
Oriental diplomacy were employed to win the 
favour of those who had crowns to dispose of, and 
the vendors showed absolute indifference to the 
claims of any save the highest bidder. One of these 
purchasers was a Greek adventurer, who had become 
a Protestant under the influence of the Reformation 
in Germany, and had fought in the armies of the Most 
Catholic King of Spain ! This remarkable person, 



46 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

having once obtained the dignity of prince by the 
most open bribery, set himself to benefit his adopted 
country, founded an excellent school near Jassy, en- 
deavoured to check divorce, even then a fashionable 
Roumanian foible, and built a Lutheran church, the 
first of its kind in Moldavia. By far the most beautiful 
religious edifice of Roumania, the celebrated Cathedral 
of Courtea d'Ardges, on the slopes of the Carpathians, 
dates from this period. Erected by Neagoe Bassarab, 
who was prince of Wallachia about 1520, and one of 
the few peace-loving and artistic rulers of his day, 
this splendid monument may compare with some of 
the finest efforts of ecclesiastical architecture. The 
story runs that the founder, while a prisoner at Con- 
stantinople, was employed by the Sultan to design a 
mosque. But the materials proved to be more than 
sufficient, and the architect obtained leave to transport 
those which were not required to his native country. 
Out of these he built the cathedral, as a tablet out- 
side it informs the traveller. But the work seemed as 
though it would never be finished. Neagoe ordered 
his assistant architect, Manole, to complete it without 
delay, and the latter, fearing for his life, resolved to 
build a live woman into the foundations, in accordance 
with a horrible custom. He summoned his men to 
decide upon the victim, and they agreed that the woman 
who first appeared with their food next day should 
be doomed to this terrible fate. In order to make the 
chances equal, none of them was to tell his wife what 
might be in store for her on the morrow. Manole alone 
kept his promise, and, in consequence, his wife, un- 
conscious of her fate, came first on the following day. 



STATE OF SOCIETY. 4/ 

A Roumanian poem tells how he carried out the 
agreement, and with his own hand built his wife Utza 
into the wall, and from that time the cathedral fell no 
more, for " Utza within the wall upholds it." But the 
guilty masons met with a frightful punishment. So 
loud were their boasts, when the cathedral was at last 
finished, that Neagoe had the scaffolding removed 
and left them to die of hunger on the roof. In their 
despair, they tried to leap down, only to meet with 
certain death on the stones below. Last of all, 
Manole approached the parapet and prepared to 
jump. But as he came near, he heard the cries of 
his wife, and fell senseless on the rocks. A fountain, 
called by his name, commemorates his fall. The 
cathedral, restored in the seventeenth century, is a 
striking proof of the taste of the prince who founded 
and the prince who renovated it. It shows that even 
at a period when Wallachia had sunk politically low, 
she was not without refinements of art, while the 
philosophical writings of Neagoe, couched in the 
form of precepts addressed to his son, are among the 
earliest literary productions of Roumania. 

The state of society during this period was based 
upon the feudal system. The nobles, or boyards, as 
they were called, were a privileged class, and did 
what was right in their own eyes. They made and 
unmade princes, promoted civil wars and oppressed the 
peasantry, as they chose. All the great offices of the 
principalities were in their hands. One of their number 
was logothcte, or Lord High Chancellor, and kept the 
great seal ; another was Groom of the Bedchamber ; 
a third was Minister of Finance. Lesser nobles held 



48 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

the posts of Chief Cook, Master of the Horse, and 
Head Janitor. The boyards paid no direct taxes, and 
in the beginning of the present century were granted 
complete exemption from all taxation whatsoever. 
They were entitled to make the peasants work on 
their lands and exact a tithe of the poor man's crop. 
But in the earlier days of the principalities, the 
peasant was not a serf, tied to the soil, but could 
migrate as he pleased, and was permitted to hold 
property of his own. Agriculture was the chief 
occupation of the people, horses and cattle were the 
greatest source of wealth. Genoese merchants drove 
a good trade in velvets and silks with the luxurious 
nobles, who were always noted for their love of fine 
clothes, and the Roumanian town of Giurgevo derived 
its name from San Giorgio, the patron saint of Genoa- 
The prince always reserved to himself the right of 
pre-emption, and in this, as in all other respects, he 
was autocratic. The sole check upon his power was 
the fear of a rival, supported by a faction of the 
nobles. He enjoyed supreme judicial power, his will 
was law ; 'he could order off an innocent person to 
instant execution without a murmur being heard. 
Violence was the characteristic of the epoch, and 
human life was accounted cheap. Hence the popu- 
lation did not increase. There were few towns of any 
size, and in Roumania, as in Servia, there was no fixed 
capital. At different periods there were four capitals 
of Wallachia and two of Moldavia. Cimpulung, 
Courtea d'Ardges, Tirgovischtea, and Bucharest were 
selected one after the other as the seat of the Walla- 
chian Government, while Jassy succeeded Suceava 



THE NOBLES. 49 

as the Moldavian metropolis. With the final 
choice of Bucharest and Jassy as capitals, the nobles 
abandoned country life and gravitated towards those 
cities. Their main employment came to be appoint- 
ments at Court, and they regarded their stay on their 
estates as little short of exile. The nobles, who held 
no State office, were gradually looked upon as a sepa- 
rate class with the special name of mazili, and ulti- 
mately became so impoverished, that they were hardly 
distinguishable from the peasants. The one civilising 
force at this period was the Church. Favoured by 
the princes and respected by the people, the clergy 
exercised considerable political influence, while they 
had a monopoly of such science as existed. Enormous 
gifts were made to the monasteries of both principali- 
ties, and some idea of their wealth may be gained 
from the fact that, when their property was secularised 
in 1863, the State received an annual revenue of 
^1,000,000 by the transaction, not including the vast 
tracts of forest which belonged to them. By means 
of their religious authority, the Roumanian clergy 
acquired a larger share of wealth than any other 
class, and the wildest of Roumanian princes acknow- 
ledged the favourite maxim of the priesthood, " the 
sabre does not cut off the bowed-down head." 

Towards the end of the sixteenth century two 
princes revived the old spirit of resistance to the 
Turks. John the Terrible of Moldavia and Michael 
the Brave of Wallachia, stand out from among 
their contemporaries like Stephen the Great and 
Mirtschea the Old in earlier times. John obtained 
the throne by starting as a diamond merchant at 

5 



5o 



THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 



Constantinople, and thus securing the patronage of 
high Turkish officials. Thanks to their support, he 




"(TV A 



(j.6rt.*X]< 



MICHAEL THE BRAVE. 



became prince of Moldavia in 1572, whereupon he 
turned round upon his supporters and summoned his 



MICHAEL THE BRAVE. 5 1 

people to follow him against the Mussulman host, 
which threatened him with deposition. Hated by 
the nobles the " terrible " prince found that his appeal 
excited the utmost enthusiasm among the masses. 
Strongly backed by them, he routed the Turkish 
armies even without the assistance of the nobility. 
But one of their number, who had remained with 
him and had been rewarded with an important 
command, sold him to the enemy. Faithful to his 
faithful peasants, he refused to surrender till the last 
gasp. At length the Turks overpowered him, and 
their cruel commander ordered his body to be 
quartered. 

The career of Michael the Brave is perhaps the 
most striking episode in Roumanian history. His 
brief but brilliant reign illuminated for a moment the 
darkness which had fallen over Wallachia, and he is re- 
garded by the Roumanians of to-day, who have erected 
an equestrian statue in his honour at Bucharest, as 
one of their national heroes. His revolt against the 
Turkish yoke was the last attempt of the people to 
recover their independence. Michael ascended the 
throne of Wallachia in 1593 by the usual means — 
intrigues at Constantinople, which cost him a fortune. 
It was the importunity of the Turkish usurers, from 
whom he had borrowed, which drove him to extremi- 
ties. These gentry besieged him in his palace and 
filled the adjoining streets with their constant alterca- 
tions. At last the prince could tolerate their complaints 
no longer. He summoned them all to the palace under 
pretext of dividing a sum of money between them. 
No sooner were they all inside than he gave the 



52 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

signal to his soldiers to set fire to the building. Not 
a single Turk escaped ; account-books and creditors 
alike perished in the flames. The Wallachs imitated 
the example of their prince ; everywhere the Turks 
were ruthlessly massacred. These " Wallachian 
Vespers " were at once followed by war. The Turks, 
finding that all attempts to seize Michael by treachery 
failed, sent an army of forty thousand men into 
Wallachia with orders to depose him. Three suc- 
cessive Roumanian victories freed the country from 
the invaders, and when they rallied their beaten 
forces and renewed the attack, Michael crossed the 
Danube on the ice, and utterly routed them. Aided 
by the Moldavian prince, Aaron, he made himself 
master of both banks of the Danube and ravaged 
the Turkish provinces as far as the walls of Adria- 
nople. The booty, which he took back to his own 
country, was immense. Roumania was for the 
moment lost to the Turks, and Constantinople and 
other Turkish towns, which largely depended upon the 
principalities for their supplies of meat, were almost 
starved. At the Turkish capital the confusion, caused 
by Michael's triumph, was increased by the fact that 
the Sultan did not know whom to send against him. 

Finding, however, that none of their other plans 
could be carried out until Wallachia was subdued, 
the Turks resolved upon another campaign against 
Michael. The latter, anxious not to fight alone, 
recognised the nominal authority of Sigismund 
Bathori, Prince of Transylvania, and consented to 
act as his lieutenant. In theory he now became the 
vassal of Sigismund, pledged himself to execute no 



bEFEAT OF THE TURKS. $$ 

treaties without the latter's approval, and accepted 
the decisions of the Transylvanian Diet, in which 
twelve Wallachian nobles were henceforth to sit as 
deputies. But although Sigismund actually deposed 
Aaron of Moldavia, and assumed the high-sounding 
title of " Prince of Transylvania, Moldavia, and 
Wallachia," his suzerainty over Michael was merely 
nominal. It had the desired effect of ensuring his 
active co-operation against the Turks. In a narrow 
defile, the Thermopylae of Roumania, between Giur- 
gevo and Bucharest, Michael awaited the advance of 
the enemy with a tiny band of followers. The Grand 
Vizier unfurled the standard of the Prophet at a 
critical moment of the battle, and Michael at the 
head of his men performed prodigies of valour. The 
victory remained with the Roumanians, and three 
Pashas were among the victims of that day. The 
Grand Vizier with difficulty escaped death in the 
marshes which bordered the road. Upon the news 
of this success, won on August 13, 1595, Sigismund 
marched to the aid of his vassal with a large force, 
and the allied armies completed the rout of the 
invaders. One place after another fell into their 
hands, and the Turks fled before the " dog " Michael, 
as they contemptuously called their deadly enemy. 
Now was the time to carry the war into their country 
and deal a decisive blow at the Ottoman Empire in 
its own provinces. The Bulgarians had sent to 
Michael, promising to rise against their Turkish 
masters, if he would only come over and help them. 
But the indolence of Sigismund deprived Michael of 
his most valuable ally, and in 1 596 he made peace 



54 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

with the Sultan, who sent a splendid embassage to 
the prince whom he had been unable to conquer. 
Michael was assured of the pardon and favour of the 
august ruler, whose armies he had scattered before 
him. It is interesting to note that he availed himself 
of the good offices of the English Ambassador at 
Constantinople in his negotiations with the Sultan. 
Michael had accomplished his great object of 
freeing his land from the Turkish yoke. He now set 
to work to realise the grand idea of uniting the whole 
Roumanian people in one nation by annexing not 
only Moldavia but Transylvania to his own princi- 
pality. For a moment he succeeded in making the 
dream of a Daco-Roman realm an accomplished fact, 
and his success, temporary though it was, has not 
been without influence on the Roumanians of our 
own time, who look upon him as " the representative 
of the national unity." He first attacked Transyl- 
vania, where Sigismund had been succeeded by his 
cousin, Cardinal Andrew Bathori, who was ready to 
become the vassal of the Sultan. A single battle 
placed that country, the " citadel of ancient Dacia," 
in his power. This decisive blow was struck at 
Schellenberg in 1599. The cardinal fought at the 
head of his troops and hurled the bitterest reproaches 
at the enemy, who had so treacherously attacked him. 
As he fled from the field, some shepherds fell upon 
him and slew him, and Michael entered the Transyl- 
vanian capital as a conqueror. His entry was long 
remembered for the kingly pomp which he displayed. 
His richly-ornamented scimitar, his costly mantle of 
silk and gold, his band of gipsy musicians, and the 



A "BIG ROUMANIAN 55 

roar of his cannon proved to his new subjects that 
the victor was no ordinary man. By his conquest of 
Transylvania, a country reputed almost impregnable 
by reason of its mountain fastnesses, Michael won for 
himself a front rank among the warriors of his age. 
But the German Emperor, who regarded Transylvania 
as a fief, became suspicious of the ulterior motives of 
the prince, who pretended to be acting in his name, 
but had been welcomed as a deliverer by the 
Roumanian peasantry of the conquered land. For 
the moment, however, Michael was unmolested. The 
common people were devoted to him because he was 
of their own blood ; the Hungarian nobles, who 
formed the dominant class in Transylvania, concealed 
from fear the hate which they felt for him. 

Master of Transylvania*, Michael next turned his 
attention to Moldavia. He assembled a large army, 
under the audacious pretext of putting an end to the 
Ottoman Empire, and then suddenly entered Moldavia 
in 1600, " in the name of the German Emperor," who 
was greatly opposed to the scheme. The campaign 
was as short as that in Transylvania. One victory 
sufficed to crush all resistance, and Michael was lord 
of the whole Roumanian race. All its three divisions 
were united under his sway, and he proudly styled 
himself, " Prince of all Wallachia, Transylvania, and 
Moldavia." But this union was of short duration. 
Michael's " big Roumania " collapsed almost as soon 
as it had been built up. 

Michael had committed a tactical blunder in 
Transylvania by the severity with which he repressed 
the revolt of the Roumanian peasants against their 



$6 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

Hungarian masters. He thus alienated the sym- 
pathies of the class which was devoted to him without 
gaining those of the nobles, who regarded him as an 
alien, and only awaited a favourable opportunity to 
overthrow him. The Emperor had grown more and 
more suspicious ; the Hungarian malcontents worked 
on his fears ; his emissaries invited them to rise 
against Michael. Surrounded by traitors on every 
side, Michael's one chance would have been to 
encourage the peasants to attack their superiors. 
But it was too late. The mercenaries in his army 
had preyed upon the wretched country folk and thus 
completed what Michael himself had begun. The 
Roumanians of Transylvania were less eager than 
ever to take up arms in defence of a prince who, 
although a fellow-countrymen, punished their mis- 
deeds with severity and allowed his troops to plunder 
their homes. The feeling of a common nationality 
was not strong enough to counteract grievances so 
practical as these. Meanwhile the nobles, aided by 
the Imperial General Basta, raised the standard of 
revolt. Michael threatened the Emperor with the 
terrors of a Turkish alliance, pointing out that the 
Sultan would willingly grant him undisturbed posses- 
sion of all Roumania as the price of his support. 
But he hesitated to carry out his threat, and while he 
hesitated, Basta hastened to attack him. The battle 
took place near the village of Mirischlau in the 
autumn of 1600. The wily " Italian hound," as 
Michael termed his adversary, pretended to retreat. 
Michael fell into the trap, was taken at a disadvantage 
during the pursuit, and defeated. When he saw that 



MICHAELS FALL. 57 

all was lost, he bade his officers bring him the flag, a 
raven with a red cross in its beak upon a field of 
green. Hiding it in his breast, he rode at full speed 
from the field, pursued by the enemy. He came to 
a river where there was no ford, and it looked as if 
he would certainly be taken prisoner. But his trusty 
steed swam the stream, and Michael was saved. He 
now betook himself to the Carpathians, where the 
Hungarian nobles sought him high and low. A price 
was put upon his body, alive or dead, and most of his 
followers forsook him. Moldavia revolted ; Transyl- 
vania he had lost ; even Wallachia was taken from 
him. In his despair, he took the bold step of throw- 
ing himself at the feet of the German Emperor. He 
presented himself at the Imperial Court at Vienna 
early in 1601, and after a somewhat cold reception, 
recovered the favour of that sovereign. The fact was 
that, since his defeat, the Transylvanian nobles had 
restored their old prince, Sigismund Bathori, and the 
Emperor preferred even Michael to him. Besides, 
Transylvania was the bulwark of the Empire against 
the Turks, and a strong arm was needed to defend it. 
Accordingly, Michael was appointed Viceroy of that 
country, and commissioned with an army for the 
purpose of deposing Sigismund. In conjunction with 
his old enemy, Basta, Michael made short work of 
that prince. But the jealousy of the two allies soon 
provoked a catastrophe. Basta hated Michael, and 
Michael despised Basta, while each regarded the 
other as a rival. The Italian resolved at last to 
" remove " the Roumanian from out of his path. At 
a moment, when his enemy was off his guard, he 



58 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

ordered a body of mercenaries to arrest him as a 
traitor. When the captain of the band summoned 
him to yield, he sprang up from the bed on which he 
was lying in his tent, and vowed that he would sooner 
die. But before he could reach his sword, he fell, 
pierced through the body. Not content with his 
death, the assassins cut off his head with his own 
weapon. His few faithful followers dispersed, and 
Basta had nothing more to fear from them. But the 
Emperor refused to reward the murderer of a man 
who, with all his faults, was the greatest Roumanian 
of them all. 

No other Roumanian hero achieved so much in so 
short a space of time as Michael the Brave. His 
whole reign was only eight years long, for he died in 
1 60 1, yet he had compressed into it the events of a 
generation. The results of his policy were quickly 
obtained, and as quickly lost. He made his un- 
fortunate people pay heavily for the glory of his 
conquests. Having to maintain a large army of 
mercenaries, and receiving scant subsidies from the 
Emperor,"he had to raise funds on his own account. 
He could not safely extort money from the Wallachian 
boyards, because he relied upon their loyalty while he 
was absent on his campaigns. He did not consider 
it politic to increase the burdens of the conquered- 
countries, and actually lowered the taxes of Moldavia, 
so that he was driven to oppress the poor peasants of 
Wallachia, who were too humble to resist. In order 
to meet his demands, many of them gave up their 
little farms, and sold themselves and their children as 
serfs for cash down. Villages, which could not pay 




MOLDAVIAN COINS. 



60 THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES. 

the taxes, were sometimes confiscated by the prince, 
and the inhabitants chained to the soil. In short, he 
found political support among the nobles, rather than 
the people, and accordingly favoured the former at 
the expense of the latter. He would have succeeded 
better had he " taken the people into partnership," 
instead of treating them as food for powder or tax- 
paying machines. His policy was thus the exact 
opposite of that of John the Terrible in Moldavia, 
who relied upon the peasantry and was hated by the 
nobles. It was, more than anything else, the lack of 
popular support, which rendered the work of Michael 
the Brave so ephemeral. He endeavoured to make 
up for the want of it by diplomatic devices, playing 
off one great power against another, now leaning 
towards the Emperor, now appearing to incline 
towards his old enemies the Turks. While he 
averted the political decline of his country for a short 
space of time, he accelerated its economic ruin by the 
legal sanction of serfdom. The condition of the 
peasantry became visibly worse from his time on- 
wards, and an oligarchy of privileged nobles tended 
more and more to concentrate power in its own 
hands. Instead of combining with other Christian 
princes in a league for the permanent emancipation 
of their lands from the Turkish yoke, he frittered 
away his resources on other, though less important, 
schemes of conquest. He is said to have meditated 
an even larger extension of his dominions. But no 
Roumanian kingdom could have stood, so long as 
the Turks were to be feared. 

With Michael the heroic age of Roumanian history 



INFLUENCE OF FOREIGNERS. 



61 



closes, and the Ottoman ascendency becomes more 
marked. Hitherto, attempts had been made to shake 
it off, but now resistance seemed useless. True, the 
Turks never converted the principalities into a 
Pashalik like Bulgaria and Servia ; they professed to 
rule the lands beyond the Danube by deputy. 
Hitherto, that deputy had been a native. But in the 
next period we shall find a new influence, that of the 
Greeks, making its way into Roumania, and gradually 
overpowering the old native families, until at last 
Greek governors take their place. 




V. 



THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 



UPON the death of Michael the Brave the princi- 
palities fell more and more under the influence of 
foreigners. The Greeks had long occupied prominent 
positions in the Roumanian hierarchy, a common 
form of religion holding the two races together. But 
they now began to take a more active part in the 
political life of the people. Radou Mihnea, one of 
the early successors of Michael, was the first prince 
who favoured the Greek element at the expense of 
the native aristocracy. Educated on Mount Athos, 
this ruler arrived in Wallachia with a whole army of 
Greek adventurers, whose speedy advancement soon 
raised the anger of the boyards. A bloody revolution 
was the result, in which the latter prevailed. Mean- 
while, the Turks had become harder masters than 
ever. They made and unmade princes, or transferred 
them from one principality to the other with such 
frequency that in seventeen years there were six 
reigns in Wallachia and ten in Moldavia. These 
transactions were conducted by the Greeks of Con- 
stantinople, who had constituted themselves the 

Turks' men of business, and were adepts at the sale 

62 



MISERY OF THE PEOPLE. 6$ 

of such profitable property as the Wallachian and 
Moldavian crowns. Fresh revolts of the boyards 
followed, and the poorer inhabitants were almost 
ruined by the exactions of their rulers. In Moldavia 
the ravages of the Poles were an additional grievance, 
and the servile prince consented to pay a tribute to 
the King of Poland as well as to the Sultan. The 
peasants had therefore to provide the funds to satisfy 
two simultaneous demands. No wonder that, in the 
words of a Venetian diplomatist, the " land sweated 
blood." Yet so eager was the competition for the 
Moldavian throne, that we find one candidate going 
as far as England, in order to obtain the good offices 
of King James I. with the Sultan. As soon as a 
prince was elected, he at once realised the truth of 
the saying that every appointment causes twenty 
disappointments. Office at Court had become the 
great object of the nobles, and as the number of 
offices was limited, all those who found themselves 
excluded naturally joined the opposition, and in- 
trigued against the ruler whom they had just helped 
to the throne. The one cry which united all the 
boyards in the early years of the seventeenth century 
was that of " Roumania for the Roumanians." 
Against the Greeks they were solid ; otherwise, each 
man fought and intrigued for his own hand ; no one 
cared one jot for the welfare of the people. But 
their efforts to keep out the foreigner failed, and the 
Sultan showed his disregard for the national senti- 
ment by sending an Italian to govern Moldavia in 
1619. The independence of the Roumanian nation 
had, indeed, almost disappeared. The one oasis in 




Illi :stri5S1mus atc^ Celsissiko Princess 

Ac.DoMI\'U.S;Do\IL\T r >vBA.SiLtl\s D, G . 
•Te'RRARCM MOLDAVIA.. Prixcefs. etc . 



=iio S.RM OcJ-w M I>- 11 



PASIL "THE WOLF/ 




MATTHEW LSASSAKAB. 



66 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

this desert of corruption is the vigorous adminis- 
tration of Matthew Bassarab and Basil " the Wolf" 
in their respective principalities. 

These two remarkable princes were contemporaries. 
Bassarab ruled over Wallachia from 1633 to 1654, 
Basil governed Moldavia from 1634 to 1653. Both 
owed their elevation to the throne to a wave of 
indignation against the growing influence of the 
Greeks ; both represented the national party at the 
outset, but both found that they could not dispense 
with the aid of the foreigners, who held the key of 
the situation at Constantinople. To keep on good 
terms with the Sultan, it was necessary to pacify his 
Greek advisers ; to pacify the latter, it was necessary 
to be gracious to their fellow-countrymen in Rou- 
mania. While Bassarab temporised between the two 
parties, Basil, once on the throne, threw in his lot 
with the Greeks, to the disgust of the natives. 

The reigns of these two princes are noteworthy as 
the era of law reform and general culture in Rou- 
mania. The first systematic attempt to give the 
principalities a code of law was due to them. Hitherto 
custom had taken the place of written paragraphs, 
and judicial proceedings had been rough and ready. 
There are, indeed, traces of an institution' found 
there at a very early date analogous to our trial by 
jury ; but the prince had been regarded as the chief 
arbiter between litigants, and he could decide as he 
chose. Now, however, a change was introduced. 
The criminal code of Basil, savage as it is, constituted 
a great advance upon any previous method of juris- 
prudence. Draco himself was hardly more severe 



basil's code. 67 

than the Moldavian lawgiver. The leading principle 
of his judicial system was " an eye for an eye and a 
tooth for a tooth." The man, who set a house on 
fire, was burnt alive ; the serf, who was guilty of rape, 
met with the same horrible fate ; the children of a 
poisoner were degraded, to show the ruler's detesta- 
tion of that very common form of murder ; the 
Roumanian, who had two wives, was put naked on 
a donkey's back, and whipped through the streets ; 
the seducer was sentenced to have boiling lead 
poured down his throat. Theft was pardoned, how- 
ever, if it was committed to avert starvation, or if the 
thief had stolen from the public enemy. One curious 
trait in this legislation is the resolute attempt to 
suppress sorcery and put down quacks of all kinds, 
whose evidence is not accepted. The torture of the 
innocent, in order to gain information, is expressly 
forbidden. But there is no conception of equality 
before the law. The boyard and his children might 
not be hung or impaled, or sent to work in the salt 
mines or the galleys. In Moldavia beheading was 
considered to be the appropriate end of a noble 
criminal, while banishment was the punishment of 
his lesser misdemeanours. The serf met with little 
consideration in the eyes of the law ; to harbour him, 
if he fled from his lord and master, was a crime ; to 
ill-treat him was no offence. Bassarab drew up a 
similar code for the sister principality, and incorpo- 
rated with it a number of civil ordinances for the 
distribution of property after death, the appointment 
of guardians, and several other enactments, borrowed 
from the Roman law. 



68 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

To him belongs the credit of establishing the first 
printing-press at Bucharest. The first book printed 
in the Roumanian language on Roumanian soil was 
his collection of canon law, which appeared in 1640. 
Hitherto, while the Roumanian had been the ver- 
nacular, Slav had been the language of literature. 
But henceforth books were issued in a tongue which 
the people could understand. Basil soon followed the 
example of his rival, and the printing-press of the 
monastery at Jassy produced a volume of sermons 
in 1643. Beginning with legal and religious treatises, 
the printers soon widened the area of their labours, 
and Roumanian began to be the language not only 
of the peasants and nobles, but of the printed books, 
which the more cultivated of them began to read. 
Basil founded a school at Jassy, where instruction 
was given in the mother-tongue, and the growth of 
Greek culture and the spread of the Greek idiom 
could not stifle it. 

Unfortunately, Bassarab and Basil did not seek to 
rival o/ie another in the arts of peace alone. From 
the first, they were deadly enemies. Bassarab sought 
the aid of the Emperor at Vienna ; Basil denounced 
his foe to the Sultan at Constantinople, and invaded 
his territory. Defeated by the Wallachian prince, 
and coldly treated by the Turks, he applied to the 
Poles for support, and again attacked Bassarab. But 
this second venture was more disastrous than the 
first. Not only was he routed in battle, but driven 
from the throne by a rising of his subjects, who were 
weary of his anti-national policy. The year after his 
flight, his rival died, and with their removal from the 



SCHERBAN CANTACUZENE. 69 

Scene, the principalities relapsed into their previous 
unfortunate condition. The fratricidal conflict of 
these two rulers, harmful though it proved, was more 
than counterbalanced by the great advances in culture 
and legality, which Roumania had made under their 
auspices. 

Their work was continued after an interval of a 
quarter of a century by Scherban Cantacuzene, who 
ascended the Wallachian throne in 1679. This en- 
lightened ruler, whose restoration of the cathedral of 
Courtea d'Ardges has been already mentioned, dimi- 
nished the burdens of the peasantry, fostered the 
growth of education, and brought out a Roumanian 
version of the Bible. Forced against his will to 
assist the Turks in their famous siege of Vienna in 
1683, he turned against them at a critical moment, 
and when ordered to bombard the city, loaded his 
cannon with balls of hay. After the defeat of the 
Ottoman besiegers, he contemplated proclaiming the 
independence of Wallachia, and entered into negotia- 
tions with the Emperor Leopold, who offered him his 
protection. At one moment, it looked as if a general 
rising of the Christian subjects of Turkey might have 
ensued, and Scherban dreamed of leading a new 
crusade against the Sultan and transplanting his own 
throne from the banks of the Danube to the shores of 
the Bosphorus. But his worst foes were those of his 
own household. His brothers and nephew opposed 
his schemes, and he was poisoned at their instigation. 
Wallachia was too small a state to liberate herself 
unaided, and with Moldavia was rarely at one. Those 
who desired to emancipate her from the Turk looked 



jo The phanariotes in roumania. 

abroad for aid. Vienna was the place, from which 
many of them had expected help ; but they now saw 
in the rising power of the " Colossus of the North " 
an alternative means of safety. The star of Russia 
had appeared in the firmament, and they sought 
guidance from its light. 

The Russians, whose close connection with the 
history of Roumania now begins, had for some time 
been on friendly terms with its rulers. As far back 
as the end of the fifteenth century a prince of 
Moldavia had married his daughter to a son of the 
Czar. But the personal relations thus formed had 
had no political influence until a much later date. 
In 1674, however, the two principalities made over- 
tures to Russia through the mediation of a monk, 
who was sen f to implore the Czar to throw his pro- 
tection over the Danubian Christians. The offer was 
favourably received. Alexis, who then sat on the 
Russian throne, suggested that a number of Rou- 
manian notables should be sent to arrange terms, and 
promised that, as soon as the " sovereigns " of 
Moldavia and Wallachia had taken the oath of 
allegiance to him, he would " grant them subsidies 
and defend them against the enemies of the Cross." 
Nothing, however, came of this proposal at the time, 
but in 1688 the Prince of Wallachia, wearied with the 
exactions of the Turks, again applied to Russia for 
aid. Peter the Great, who was then Czar, made the 
same response ; but it was not till 1 7 1 1 that the 
Russians and Roumanians formed an alliance for the 
first time. At this period Constantine Brancovano 
was prince of Wallachia and Demetrius Cantemir of 



PETER THE GREAT. 71 

Moldavia. The former promised to provide Petef 
with thirty thousand soldiers and ample provisions, for 
which he received a large sum of money from Russia; 
the latter concluded a secret treaty with the Czar, by 
which the Russians bound themselves to defray the 
expenses of maintaining a standing army in Moldavia, 
guaranteed the safety of the Moldavian throne, and 
undertook neither to marry nor acquire land in the 
principality. The object of Peter the Great was 
clear. Devoted to naval affairs, he was resolved to 
be master of the Black Sea, and convert it, if possible, 
into a Russian lake. To attain this object, he was 
glad to avail himself of those religious ties which 
were a bond of union between the Christian subjects of 
the Porte and himself. Long before, a Venetian diplo- 
matist had said that " the Sultan feared the Muscovite 
ruler, because he belonged to the same faith as the 
peoples of Bulgaria, Servia, and Bosnia, who would 
always be ready to take up arms on his side and sub- 
mit to his authority, in order to throw off the Turkish 
yoke." Peter himself laid stress upon the religious 
character of his enterprise. He started as if for a 
crusade. His banner bore the ancient device " By 
this sign thou shalt conquer " ; his soldiers set out 
" in the name of the Saviour and Christianity." Had 
his expedition proved successful, one or both of the 
principalities would have become part of the Russian 
Empire, and his boundary might have stretched to 
the Danube. 

The treaty, humiliating though it may seem, was 
generally popular in Moldavia. The nobles told 
Cantemir that he had " done well " ; the people 



72 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

echoed their sentiments. When the great Czar 
arrived at Jassy, all the principal inhabitants went 
out to welcome him as a deliverer ; the cathedral 
bells were rung in his honour ; the clergy rejoiced at 
the advent of a Christian Emperor. There was, it is 
true, a national party still left, which suspected the 
motives of the liberator, and it was noticed that when 
the Russian guests lay down to rest with their 
generous hosts after the state banquet, the gold- 
laced boots of the boyards, their costly pistols, and 
their rich ornaments were not forthcoming in the 
morning. But the enthusiasm of Peter's reception 
did not compensate him for the inefficiency of his 
Moldavian allies. Cantemir himself, who wrote a 
history of the Ottoman Empire, and was a man of 
great learning, lamented the riotous habits of his 
subjects, who " spent their pay in the taverns, and 
preferred plunder and pillage to military service." 
Brancovano, less zealous than Cantemir, suspended 
relations with Russia, and Peter, instead of securing 
a brilliant victory, only escaped capture through the 
corruption of the Turkish commander. So ended 
the first campaign of the Russians in Roumania. 
Cantemir withdrew to Russia with many of his 
boyards, where he received a grant of lands and 
became a prince of the Empire ; Brancovano died a 
violent death. The Sultan, convinced of his com- 
plicity with Peter, and unappeased by his subsequent 
conduct, ordered his arrest. The emissary entrusted 
with this command, forced his way into the prince's 
audience chamber with his Janissaries, threw a black 
shawl over Brancovano's shoulders, and proclaimed 



THE CREEK GOVERNORS. f$ 

his deposition. Not a hand was raised in the 
prince's defence. Carried off to Constantinople, he 
was beheaded in the presence of the Sultan. One 
member of his family was spared, and the name still 
exists in Roumania. But his vast possessions, in- 
cluding the crown of the principality, were confiscated 
by the Turks ; the son of the man who had revealed 
his intrigues with Russia to the Porte was appointed 
as his successor on the Wallachian throne. But 
Stephen Cantacuzene, as he was called, did not long 
enjoy the dubious honour. He shared, two years 
later, the fate of Brancovano, and, both thrones 
being vacant, the Sultan resolved to appoint no 
more native rulers. In the Greeks of .Constantinople, 
who from the " Phanar," or district of the city where 
they resided, had obtained the name of " Phanariotes," 
he thought that he would find more pliable instru- 
ments of his policy. Nicholas Mavrocordato, whose 
father had risen from the position of a common 
labourer to the office of dragoman to the Porte, was 
accordingly appointed governor of Wallachia in 1716. 
The rule of the Phanariote governors of Moldavia 
and Wallachia, which lasted from 1716 to 1822, was, 
with some notable exceptions, distinguished by the 
corruption and maladministration which mark the 
decline of the Ottoman Empire. The Greek rulers 
of the two Danubian principalities had to pay heavily 
for their appointment, and took good care to make 
their unfortunate subjects make up to them more 
than they had expended. At their accession they 
were expected to hand over some sixty thousand 
pounds sterling to the Sultan, whose interest it natu- 



74 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANlA. 

rally was to appoint fresh governors at as frequent 
intervals as possible. Thus in a period of 106 years 
there were no fewer than thirty-three different 
governors of Moldavia, and thirty-five of Wallachia. 
Having, on an average, only about three years in 
which to recoup themselves for their initial expendi- 
ture, the Phanariote rulers increased the burdens of 
the natives as much as they could. No sooner had 
one governor retired than another came to squeeze 
the unhappy people, and thus there was no limit to 
the extortions to which the Roumanians had to sub- 
mit. Besides, the ceremonial which was kept up was 
most expensive, and for that, of course, the poor pro- 
vincials had to pay. An English writer, who was 
Consul at Bucharest towards the end of the Phanariote 
period, has given a graphic account of their accession 
to the throne. A berat, or patent, signed by the 
Sultan, was a necessary preliminary, and that, of 
course, was a costly item. Then, while the newly- 
appointed governor was engaged in the tedious for- 
malities which were essential to his departure from 
Constantinople — swearing allegiance to the Sultan and 
assuming the kukka, or military crest, and the grand 
robe of office — a messenger was despatched before him 
to prepare his subjects for his arrival. As an interval 
of about two months generally elapsed before the 
governor arrived at Bucharest or Jassy, this courier 
acted as his deputy, not without profit to himself. 
When at last the great man appeared, he did not 
come alone. Swarms of needy retainers were in his 
train, ready to fill all the fat offices which awaited 
them in the promised land. For every new Hospodar, 



COURT LIFE. 75 

as the governors were called, at once changed all the 
officials, thinking that the spoils belonged to the 
new-comer. It can well be understood how badly 
a country was managed whose civil servants were 
foreigners, and foreigners, too, who were turned out 
of their places just when they had begun to grasp 
the details of administration. While in power, the 
governor had to expend money judiciously at Con- 
stantinople, in order to counteract intrigues against 
himself. We have from the pen of one of their Court 
physicians early in the present century a graphic 
account of their mode of life. Bucharest and Jassy 
became centres of Asiatic luxury. The Hospodar 
out-ottomaned the Ottomans in his determination to 
avoid even the slightest form of exertion. His bread 
was cut up into small pieces, so that his noble fingers 
need not be compelled to break it, his cupbearer 
held his goblet of crystal ready at his elbow, his after- 
noon sleep was ensured by the complete cessation of 
all business in the city. No bell might ring, no noise 
of men's voices be heard before his palace while he 
slept, and it is even said that some of these rulers 
were lifted by their footmen, so as to save them the 
trouble of walking from table to bed. Their consorts 
were as extravagant and extortionate as themselves. 
The dresses of one princess cost her nearly .£2,300, 
which meant more in the last century than now. 
Another of these amiable ladies, unable to afford a 
costume which would " kill " all rivals, persuaded her 
husband to banish a nobleman's wife who was better 
dressed than herself. When the princely exchequer 
was full, and the princess so resplendent with clothes 



76 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANlA. 

and jewels that she feared no comparison, she invited 
the disgraced lady to Court and gratified her spite by 
the spectacle of her enemy's discomfiture. 

The Roumanian nobles were contaminated by the 
example of their Phanariote governors. Naturally 
fond of luxury and display, they beggared themselves 
in the foolish attempt to keep up appearances. The 
main idea of the men was to obtain favour by toady- 
ing to the authorities ; the chief desire of the women 
to make good matches. Divorce became frequent ; 
the sons and daughters of noble families saw in a rich 
marriage the only chance of restoring their fallen 
fortunes, and the natural result was infidelity or indif- 
ference. Even now divorce statistics are high in 
Roumania as compared with many other countries. 
As for the clergy, they too became the victims of 
extortion, and were at last compelled to extort money 
from their flocks. Society was rotten to the core. The 
condition of the people was deplorable. Upon them 
the whole burden of supporting this system of govern- 
ment ultimately fell. If they ventured to murmur, they 
were put in prison, and the result was that many of 
them, driven desperate by these exactions, became 
brigands and took to the mountains. If caught, they 
were condemned to a lingering death in the salt 
mines ; if fortunate enough to evade the soldiers of 
the governor, they often acquired great wealth at the 
expense of their country. Sometimes, however, the 
scandals of the administration were so notorious that 
the Sultan felt bound to interfere. In that case, the 
Hospoda,}' had a very short shrift, for his enemies at 
Constantinople took care that he should not escape. 



RUSSO-TURK/SH WARS. 77 

Thus one of these governors was strangled, and others 
exiled. Finally, to complete the misery of the people, 
the currency was debased and huge monopolies inter- 
rupted the ordinary course of commerce. 

Bad as the Phanariotes were according to the 
unanimous testimony of their contemporaries, they 
were not all black. Nicholas Mavrocordato, for 
example, the first of them who ruled in Wallachia, 
showed himself the friend of the peasants by abolish- 
ing the bands of retainers which the boyards kept at 
their beck and call. This blow at the feudal system 
was followed by the establishment of law and order 
throughout the principality. Another Wallachian 
governor, Constantine Mavrocordato, further weakened 
the power of the native nobles by transferring their 
serfs to the new Greek aristocracy which had grown 
up under the protection of the Phanariote rulers. 
The change was of doubtful advantage to the pea- 
santry, but it was a source of great strength to the 
Government. Other governors left their mark on the 
principalities by erecting fine public buildings and 
founding large charitable institutions, and occasionally 
the alien ruler proved a better patriot than the native 
nobility, the " sleeping dogs," as the people called 
them. 

The chief political events of the Phanariote period 
were the Russo-Turkish wars, by which the two 
principalities were deeply affected. The abortive 
campaign of Peter the Great in 171 1 had only served 
to stimulate the desire of his successors for the de- 
velopment of their Empire. But it was not till 1736 
that the Russians made a second attempt to acquire 



78 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

the two principalities. Before declaring war, the 
Empress Anne, who then ruled the Russian do- ' 
minions, demanded from the Porte the recognition of 
Moldavia and Wallachia as independent principalities 
under a Russian protectorate. This would have been 
the first step towards a Russian advance into the 
Balkan Peninsula, for, from their geographical posi- 
tion, the principalities effectually barred the way to 
any attempt at bringing the Bulgarian and Servian 
population under Russian influence. Naturally, the 
Porte refused to accept these terms. The war was 
less disastrous to the Empress than to her Austrian 
allies. The Russian Field-Marshal Munich entered 
Moldavia in 1739, and met with such success that 
Gregory Ghika, the Hospodar, retired with his cour- 
tiers, leaving a deputy in his place. Accompanied by 
the two sons of the former native prince, Cantemir, 
Munich entered J assy in state, and received the keys 
of the Moldavian capital from the head of the Church. 
But the Field-Marshal was no diplomatist. He 
treated the country as that of an enemy ; he came, 
not as a liberator, but as a conqueror. In fact, he 
made the same mistake in Moldavia which in our 
own time General Kaulbars made in Bulgaria. When 
the Metropolitan offered him the cross, he declined to 
kiss it ; when the prelate began to pray, he burst out 
laughing. His conditions, which included a nice 
annuity for himself, and free quarters for his men, 
could not have been more oppressive if he had been 
dealing with Turks instead of co-religionists — and yet 
their common religion was the favourite plea of the 
Russians for their intervention. " The people saw," 



CATHERINE II. AND ROUMANIA. ?g 

quaintly writes the old Moldavian chronicler, "what 
a costly honour it was to receive Munich as a guest ; 
sweet wine became vinegar, laughter tears, joy terror, 
and riches poverty." The eyes of the people were 
opened ; they saw that a Muscovite " liberator " 
might be as harsh as a Greek governor, and from 
that moment dates the rise of a strong anti-Russian 
party in the principalities. The peace of Belgrade in 
1739 restored Moldavia to the Turkish Empire, and, 
as far as their Roumanian projects were concerned, 
the Russians were no better off at the close of this 
second war than at the end of the first. 

The third attempt was much more successful. 
Catherine II. began, soon after her accession, the task 
of preparing the Roumanian people for a Russian 
occupation. Her secret agents fomented the discon- 
tent of the peasantry and played upon the feelings of 
the native nobles, who saw themselves being gradually 
displaced by the scum of the Phanar. The declara- 
tion of war in 1 768 found the Turks at a disadvantage, 
and a great Russian victory on the river Dniester 
placed the principalities in the power of the victors. 
Moldavia hastened to proffer its homage to the Rus- 
sian commander, Galitzin. In the cathedral of Jassy 
the congregation took the oath of allegiance to " the 
too compassionate Empress Catherine," and swore to 
" consider the enemies of the Russian army as those 
of Moldavia, and to behave in all things as the good 
and faithful slaves of Her Majesty." Nothing short 
of complete annexation was intended. Wallachia 
next acknowledged the authority of the great Empress. 
Gregory Ghika, the Wallachian Hospodar, turned 



8o THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

traitor, and was received at the Russian Court with 
the utmost honours. Epistles, drawn up by the clergy 
in the most servile terms, were despatched to Catherine 
by both principalities, and from 1770 to 1774, they 
experienced a Russian occupation. 

Catherine had promised the native deputations that 
their countries should enjoy their ancient customs and 
have complete management of their internal affairs. 
Moldavia desired to be governed by twelve boyards, 
elected for three years. Wallachia professed to wish 
for complete incorporation with the Russian Empire. 
But the people groaned under the necessity of pro- 
viding quarters and provisions for the Russian army 
during the war, and discovered that their protectors 
were as difficult to satisfy as the Turks. The Empress 
was not able to annex the principalities definitely to 
her dominions. Austria had become restive at the 
great expansion of Russia and the jealousy between 
the two great Powers had already begun to show 
itself in their dealings with the Christians of Turkey. 
It was solely in order to pacify Austrian fears that 
Russia, "by the famous treaty of Kutchuk-Kai'nardji in 
1774, restored Moldavia and Wallachia to the Sultan 
on conditions which were very favourable to the in- 
habitants. The Sultan pledged himself to grant an 
amnesty to all who had taken sides against him in the 
late war ; to allow full religious liberty ; to restore the 
lands of the monasteries ; to levy no taxes for two 
years, in consideration of the ravages of the con- 
tending armies ; to impose moderate and regular 
taxes at the close of that period ; and to receive two 
Greek Christians as the accredited agents of the 



LOSS OF BUCOVINA. 8 1 

principalities at Constantinople. Most important of 
all, a pregnant clause of the treaty granted the Rus- 
sian Ambassador there the right of " speaking in behalf 
of the principalities as circumstances may require." 
This informal Russian protectorate was fatal in the 
long run to the suzerainty of the Sultan. 

But if Austria had been the means of saving the 
Roumanians from a permanent Russian annexation, 
she soon showed that she had designs of her own upon 
their territory. She obtained from the Sultan in 1777 
the cession of Bucovina, which then formed the north- 
eastern part of Moldavia and contained Suceava, the 
ancient capital of the principality, and the venerable 
convent of Putna, where the remains of the princes 
were laid. Gregory Ghika, who had been placed by 
Russian influence on the throne after the war, refused 
to sign the deed, which deprived him of the most fertile 
part of his country. His action was interpreted by the 
Sultan as a further proof of his sympathies with Russia. 
The order for his " removal " was issued, and he fell 
beneath the yataghans of some Turkish emissaries in 
his own capital. 

Catherine II. had not abandoned her schemes for 
the extension of Russian influence in the principalities. 
In 1782 she obtained from the Porte permission to 
have Russian consuls at both Bucharest and Jassy, 
who naturally became the centres of Russian intrigues 
in their respective spheres. The cost of their main- 
tenance was defrayed by the Moldavian and Walla- 
chian treasuries, and they used their influence to 
undermine the authority of the Sultan. Their 
appointment, however unpalatable to the Turks, was 

7 



82 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

the logical outcome of the treaty of Kai'nardji. But 
Catherine soon took a further step in the pursuit of 
her grand idea. She met Joseph II. of Austria, and 
arranged with him a scheme for the partition of the 
Ottoman Empire — the first of many such proposals, 
which have seen the light. According to this plan, 
as neither of the two great Powers would consent to 
give up the two Danubian principalities unreservedly 
to the other, they were to be united under Prince 
Potemkin, the favourite minister of Catherine, as an 
independent state, which would undoubtedly have 
been speedily converted into a Russian province. 
Russia not only invaded the Crimea, then part of the 
Turkish dominions, but advanced on the Caucasus, 
and the Sultan replied by declaring war in 1787 ; a 
few months later Austria joined in the attack upon 
the Turks. The Prussian minister Herzberg strongly 
advised the Sultan to separate his two enemies by 
handing over the principalities to Russia. "What 
advantage," he said, " do you Turks gain from the 
possession of those provinces, whose only use is to 
enrich *a few wretched Greeks and to nourish a few 
Tartar hordes ? " But the Turks thought otherwise, 
and ordered Nicholas Mavrogheni, who was at that 
time governor of Wallachia, to raise an army against 
their enemies. Mavrogheni summoned the boyards, 
and bade them take up arms for the cause of their 
suzerain. The nobles refused to obey the orders of 
the Greek viceroy, who did not know a single word 
of their own language. Mavrogheni, indignant at their 
conduct, told his groom to lead all the horses in his 
stables into the courtyard. When the steeds were 



MAVROGHENl'S HORSES. 83 

ready, he again called upon his nobles to mount. Not 
one of them showed signs of obedience, and the Greek, 
resolved to show his scorn for these great officials of 
state, who remained idle at his call, conferred upon his 
horses the high-sounding titles, of which the boyards 
were unworthy. " Degenerate descendants of Mirts- 
chea, Vlad, and Michael the Brave," he cried, " I banish 
you from my presence ; henceforth my horses shall 
hold your offices and enjoy your honours." Some of 
the nobles were so moved by his reproaches that they 
mounted and followed him, while the rest slunk away 
and sought an ignominious exile. But Mavrogheni's 
efforts were futile. The Russians entered the princi- 
palities and took up their quarters at the two capitals, 
and the Greek governor, who had served the Sultan 
with such rare fidelity, was rewarded by his ungrateful 
master with degradation and death. His head was 
cut off, as if he had been a traitor, and his successors 
were thus effectually discouraged from following his 
example. But the death of Joseph II. and the out- 
break of the French Revolution diverted the attention 
of Austrian statesmen from the East. Austria made 
peace with Turkey, and in 1792 Russia concluded the 
treaty of J assy with the Porte, by which the former 
treaty of Kainardji was confirmed. The principalities 
remained in the hands of the Sultan, on condition that 
the exactions of his Phanariote governors should be 
checked, while Russia retained her right of interven- 
tion. The position of Moldavia and Wallachia after 
this war, from which so much had been expected by 
the enemies of Turkey, was almost precisely the 
same as it had been eighteen years earlier. 



84 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROU MANIA. 

The promised reforms of the Phanariote system of 
government remained a dead letter. A Turkish edict 
of 1784 had prohibited the removal of the governors 
except for felony ; but this too was disregarded. All 
the evils of the system continued undiminished. Plague 
and famine afflicted the land, which had once been the 
granary of the Turkish Empire. Brigand chiefs, like 
the notorious Pasvanoglu, of whom we shall hear again 
in the history of Bulgaria, made repeated inroads into 
the principalities. The Turkish soldiers, who were 
sent to suppress him, fraternised with his robber-band ; 
Wallachia cried aloud to be defended from her 
defenders. The Greek governor and the boyards fled 
at the mere rumour of the terrible brigand's approach, 
as if a new horde of barbarians were upon them. Such 
was the condition of the present kingdom of Roumania 
a century ago. 

But in 1802 the dawn of a new era began. The 
fear of Bonaparte had thrown the Sultan into the arms 
of Russia. The Czar obtained a provision to the effect 
that henceforth the governors of Moldavia and Walla- 
chia sh6*uld be appointed for seven years, and should 
not be removed during their term of office except for 
good reason, and even then only with the permission 
of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople. Thus 
the vague right of intervention, which Russia had 
obtained by the treaties of Kainardji and Jassy, was 
converted into a definite understanding. Another 
event of much benefit to the Roumanians was the 
appointment of a British consul at Bucharest, while 
Russia secured the nomination of two puppets of hers 
to the Moldavian and Wallachian thrones. These 



TREATY OF BUCHAREST. 85 

rulers not only pursued an anti-Turkish policy in 
their own dominions, but privately supported the 
Serbs, who had just risen under Black George against 
the Turks. Their consequent deposition by the Sultan 
in 1806, three years before their term of office had 
expired, was regarded by Russia and England as so 
serious a breach of faith, that a bombardment of Con- 
stantinople was threatened. The princes were restored, 
but the Czar, anxious for an excuse for intervention, 
demanded further securities for the Roumanian people, 
against the raids of the brigands under Pasvanoglu. 
Russian troops entered the principalities and war 
began. But, as long as she feared Napoleon, Russia 
could make no headway against the Sultan. It was 
not until the peace of Tilsit in 1807 had relieved her 
from the necessity of opposing him, that she could 
devote her undivided attention to the Danubian prin- 
cipalities. The French Emperor was now willing to 
see her annex Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and 
Bulgaria as far as the Balkans. But, even though 
liberated for the moment from the fear of Napoleon, 
the " Colossus of the North " made little progress in 
Roumania. The treaty of Bucharest in 181 2 at last 
ended this protracted struggle. The delta of the 
Danube, and the part of Moldavia between the rivers 
Dniester and Pruth were ceded to the Czar, and the 
latter instead of the former stream was now the 
boundary of the Russian and Turkish Empires. The 
whole of Bessarabia thus passed into the hands of 
Russia. So disgusted was the Sultan with the 
conduct of his plenipotentiaries, that he ordered them 
to be beheaded. The Roumanians, on their part, had 



86 THE PHANAR10TES IN ROUMANIA. 

gained nothing by the war. Their country had suffered 
terribly from the presence of the hostile armies, and 
the inhabitants had sought refuge with all their worldly 
possessions in the churches in order to escape pillage. 
The requisitions of the army of occupation were a 
heavy tax upon the peasants, and the five years during 
which they had to support their " liberators," were long 
remembered in the land. To crown all, just as Austria 
had dismembered Moldavia by taking Bucovina in 
1777, so Russia disintegrated the principalities by 
annexing Bessarabia. A contemporary historian has 
left us a pitiful account of the heartrending scenes, 
which took place on the banks of the Pruth, when the 
moment arrived for the formal cession of the well-loved 
land. For weeks beforehand, the people went to and 
fro, bidding farewell to the friends and relatives, from 
whom they were soon to be separated. From that 
moment the Pruth became in the language of the 
peasants, the " accursed river." Thus the century of 
Russo-Turkish wars from 1 7 1 1 to 1 8 1 2, through which 
they had passed, had been fatal to the Roumanians ; 
instead of recovering their independence, they had lost 
one part of their ancient territory to Austria, and 
another to Russia ; in the place of Greek and Turkish 
exactions, they had had Russian armies to maintain. 
They had learnt one political maxim from these five 
Russian interventions, that their safety lay in the 
mutual jealousies of the two great Christian Powers 
on either side of them. 

The Phanariote rule continued for ten years more. 
But the Greek War of Independence, which broke 
out in 1 82 1, was destined to give the final blow to 



ROUMANIAN RISINGS. 87 

the system. The movement in favour of a free 
Greece was strongly supported in Moldavia by 
Alexander Ypsilanti, son of a former governor of 
Wallachia, who set up the standard of revolt at Jassy, 
and was followed by the reigning Hospodar of Mol- 
davia, Michael Soutzo. But the Roumanians had 
no desire to throw off the Turkish yoke merely to 
strengthen the influence of the Greeks, whose op- 
pression they had borne so impatiently for more 
than a century. They refused to take up arms for 
the Greek cause, more particularly as they saw that 
Russia was indisposed to assist it openly. They 
knew that, if it proved successful, they would not 
be benefited, while, if it were unsuccessful and they 
were found to have assisted it, the Turks would take 
a terrible revenge upon them. In Wallachia, a re- 
volution broke out under the leadership of Toudor 
Vladimirescou,' a noble of popular sympathies, whose 
primary object was to deliver the peasants from the 
grinding tyranny of the aristocracy, but whose efforts 
were ultimately directed against the Greeks. Thus the 
whole Roumanian people was in a ferment ; while one 
principality was agitated by the rising of Ypsilanti 
on behalf of Greece, the other was stirred to its 
foundations by the bold attacks of Vladimirescou 
against Greek supremacy. A collision between the 
two revolutionary leaders was inevitable. Ypsilanti, 
to rid himself of so dangerous a rival, ordered one 
of his underlings to seize the nationalist chief and 
bring him before him. A mock trial followed, and 
the brave Roumanian was murdered by Ypsilanti's 
cut-throats. The national movement subsided, and 



88 THE PHANARIOTES IN ROUMANIA. 

Roumania was given over to the struggles of the 
Greeks against the Turks. Ypsilanti retired before 
the advance of the Turkish army, the Greek flotilla 
was destroyed on the Danube, the Greek leader was 
routed; fleeing across the Carpathians, he was arrested 
by order of the Austrian Government, and died in 
prison, bequeathing to his brother Demetrius the 
duty of avenging him upon the Turks. 




OLD ROUMANIAN SEAL. 

But the rising of Vladimirescou had not been 
altogether in vain. The loyalty of the Roumanians, 
contrasting as it did so forcibly with the faithless- 
ness of the Phanariote governors, had at last opened 
the eyes of the Sultan to the real state of things in 
the two principalities. His interest, no less than theirs, 
demanded a change, and the most indolent of 
Turkish officials recognised that it was unsafe to 



THE LAST OF THE PHANARIOTES. 89 

entrust two important governorships to men whose 
natural sympathies must inevitably be with the Greek 
insurgents. It has always been the plan of the Turks 
to maintain their influence by the mutual jealousies 
of the rival Christian nationalities under their sway. 
The demands of the Roumanians for governors of 
their own race were therefore heard at last ; and, 
unwilling to have a discontented Roumania as well 
as a rebellious Greece, the Porte yielded in 1822. 
The Phanariote rule was formally ended, and two 
native boyards, Jonitza Stourza and Gregory Ghika 
were appointed respectively Hospodars of Moldavia 
and Wallachia. For the first time for years the 
nomination was secured without bribery, and the 
best men were chosen. The national spirit had re- 
vived, and with it the desire for liberty had mani- 
fested itself among the people. 




VI. 



THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 



(1822— 1866.) 



THE influence of the Greeks over the Roumanians 
was shattered ; the ascendency of the Turks was on 
the wane ; the problem, which faced the princi- 
palities after the restoration of their native princes, 
was how to maintain their independence against 
Russia. The period, which began in 1822, supplies 
the answer to that question and closes with the 
picture qf a free, autonomous, and prosperous Rou- 
mania. 

The newly-appointed Hospodars found their sub- 
jects in a deplorable condition. War, corruption in 
high places, and universal discontent had marked 
the Phanariote rule, and there hung over the twin 
lands the dark shadow of Russia. The masses began 
to demand a share in the government ; the nobles 
were resolved not to abate one jot of their ancient 
privileges, and denounced any prince, who showed 
popular tendencies, as a traitor to his caste. In 
Moldavia, the boyards, supported by the Czar, wrung 



TREATY OF ADRIANOPLE. 9! 

from the reluctant ruler a "golden bull," by which 
they were exempted from all taxation ; in Wallachia, 
they tried in vain to overthrow the Government. 
Such was the state of the principalities when Russia 
concluded the convention of Akermann with the 
Sultan in 1826, which gave her greater power over 
the destinies of the Roumanian people than she 
could have secured by a successful war. By this 
arrangement it was provided that the princes of 
Moldavia and Wallachia should be elected by the 
general assembly of the nobles for the term of seven 
years, and that this election should be subject to the 
approval of the Porte, which could neither refuse its 
consent nor order their deposition without consulting 
the Czar. A further clause made it incumbent upon 
the two princes to " take into their consideration the 
representations of the Russian ministers and consuls 
on the subject of the privileges enjoyed by the 
principalities." The Autocrat of all the Russias thus 
became the " predominant partner " in Roumania ; 
the Sultan's name came first in the deed of partner- 
ship, but the Czar was the active member of the firm. 
When the Russo-Turkish war of 1828 broke out, 
the Imperial troops at once invaded the principalities, 
which had for the sixth time to experience a Russian 
occupation. The Turks offered little opposition to 
the invaders, who dictated peace to the Sultan at 
Adrianople in 1829. By this treaty, Moldavia and 
Wallachia were restored to the Turks, but only on 
condition that the Hospodars should be elected for 
life. All the fortified places, hitherto occupied in 
Wallachia by Turkish troops, were to be given up, 



()2 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

complete internal independence was guaranteed, and 
nothing but a fixed money tribute was to be exacted 
in future by the Porte. But the most important 
point of all was reserved to the last. The Sultan 
undertook to ratify all the administrative regulations, 
which had been drawn up during the Russian occu- 
pation. Under another article, the Russians were 
entitled to keep a garrison in the principalities until 
the full payment of the war indemnity by the Turkish 
Government. Thus the occupation was prolonged 
till 1834, and lasted, in all, some six years. All the 
time the utmost efforts were made to establish the 
influence of the Czar upon a permanent basis. A 
constitution was devised which is known as the 
reglement organique, with the express object of 
strengthening the power of Russia. The Russian 
Minister Nesselrode wrote complacently that " the 
conquest of Wallachia and Moldavia was superfluous, 
for Russia was already their master, without having 
to keep a permanent force of soldiers in those 
countries." For the phantom of Turkish suzerainty, 
the Roumanians had received in exchange the stern 
reality of a Russian protectorate. The reglement 
organique, the work of the Muscovite administrators, 
Pahlen and Kisselef, who managed the affairs of the 
principalities during the Russian occupation, was 
based upon extreme oligarchical principles. It 
separated the nation into two sharply divided classes, 
the nobles and the people ; and, while it conceded 
the greatest latitude to the former, it treated the 
latter like pariahs. The power of making the laws, 
the election of the prince, all political offices, all 



THE RUSSIAN \ OCCUPATION. 93 

military appointments — these were the peculiar right 
of the boyards ; the less pleasant task of paying all 
the taxes — that was the exclusive privilege of the 
peasants and the small tradesmen. In a word, 
according to the Russian constitution, the Roumanian 
people had no rights, the Roumanian nobles no 
duties. At the same time, true to the principle, 
which afterwards found its fullest expression in the 
constitution, drawn up for Bulgaria in 1879, the 
prince and the boyards were made to act as a check 
upon each other. With the bulk of the nation dis- 
franchised, with a puppet on the throne and a 
privileged aristocracy to keep him in order, there was 
little fear, so it seemed, of a national awakening 
against the influence of the great Czar. But, in spite 
of this reactionary method of government, introduced 
at a time when Western Europe was in the throes of 
constitutional reform, there were practical benefits 
derived from the Russian occupation. For the first 
time, Roumanian law recognised the principle that 
some limit must be set to litigation ; magistrates 
were made irremovable, sanitation was enforced, new 
tribunals were created, and justice was brought to 
every man's door by the establishment of a petty 
court in every village. These were practical im- 
provements, which compensated in some measure for 
the refusal of political rights. 

Meanwhile, however, a national spirit had been 
slowly developing. The Roumanians began to feel 
proud of their ancient origin, their native language, 
and their past history. Young men of promise, who 
were sent to study abroad, returned home with a 



94 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

grander conception of their country's destiny than 
could be fulfilled by a Turkish suzerainty or a 
Russian protectorate. More particularly, the con- 
tact with France and French ideas, which now began 
and has never since ceased, reminded them that they 
too were members of the Latin race. A society for 
the promotion of a national literature had been 
founded in 1826 by two gifted Roumanians — Con- 
stantine Golescou and John Heliade Radoulescou ; 
and a national theatre was projected. Radoulescou 
wrote treatises upon almost every subject in the 
vernacular. He was the poet, grammarian, historian, 
and dramatist of his country. A ruined monastery 
served him as a lecture-hall, and every winter his 
pupils braved cold and wet for the pleasure of listen- 
ing to his instruction. The war of 1828 somewhat 
checked the educational movement, but the Russians 
were not opposed to culture up to a certain point, 
and the year 1829 witnessed the issue of the first 
Roumanian newspaper. Schools, where the pupils 
were taught in their mother tongue, were opened in 
larger numbers, and the service of the Church was 
conducted in the same language. A national society 
arose for the study of art, and it became the fashion 
to join it. Books became more common, and a 
curiosity of the period was a " Manual of Patriotism," 
published at Jassy. After the Russian occupation, 
the national movement advanced apace, until the 
Czar thought that it had gone too far. Authors had 
dared to attack him and to manifest a dangerous 
love of independence. The more retrograde of the 
nobles made themselves the instruments of the re- 



THE REVOLUTION OF 1 848. 95 

actionary policy. Higher education was suppressed, 
and in Moldavia the prince declared that, as the 
offices of state were open to the boyards alone, it was 
absurd to give to the rest of the nation the same 
instruction as to them. But it was easier to deal 
with the schools than with the men of letters. A 
great poet bade the Roumanian people " awake from 
the sleep of death," and his verses, set to music, 
became the national anthem of the patriotic party. 
Political, as well as literary events, were rapidly 
leading up to the great revolution of 1848, which, 
sweeping over Europe, took the Danubian princi- 
palities in its course. In 1842 the Czar, finding that 
the prince of Wallachia was not sufficiently docile, 
induced the Porte to depose him. No fewer than 
thirty-seven candidates came forward for the vacant 
throne, but the choice of the boyards finally fell upon 
George Bibescou, who appeared before his people in 
the costume of Michael the Brave. He became in- 
volved in a dispute with the national assembly over 
some mining concessions, and prevailed upon the 
Sultan to suspend that refractory body for the re- 
mainder of its term. This aroused against him the 
intense animosity of the great nobles, who were 
always jealous of any one of their number who had 
ascended the princely throne over the heads of his 
fellows. The lesser nobility, on the other hand, em- 
braced his cause, and, when the Revolution broke 
out, it was directed not against him, but against 
the influence of Russia. The spark was kindled in 
Paris in February 1848, and the flames rapidly 
spread eastward. In Hungary the Roumanians 



96 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

of Transylvania rose against the tyranny of the 
Magyars ; in the two principalities the people were 
animated by the desire to throw off the protec- 
torate of Russia and so terminate the reactionary 
system of government which she had introduced. 
The masses were led by men of distinction, two of 
whom, Constantine Rosetti and John Bratiano, were 
destined to play an important part in the later 
history of their country. The leaders proposed to 
the prince that he should put himself at the head 
of the movement. But Bibescou did not share the 
views of the revolutionists. Convinced that Russia 
could crush them in a moment, he told them that 
he did not consider the season propitious for such 
an enterprise. Another attempt to persuade him 
proved futile, and on the 9th of June the revolution 
broke out at Bucharest. Bibescou ordered the arrest 
of several members of the revolutionary committee ; 
their supporters fired at him as he drove through 
the streets. An immense crowd gathered in front 
of his palace, and forced him to sign the scheme 
for a new constitution and appoint a ministry from 
among the popular leaders. Bibescou upon this 
abdicated, leaving the revolutionists in possession 
of the field. Not a single drop of blood had been 
shed. 

The aim of the more moderate reformers was 
not the formal independence of their country from 
the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom they ad- 
dressed a letter expressive of their devotion, but 
the practical freedom of the nation from Russian 
interference, coupled with full political equality. All 



END OF THE REVOLUTION. g 1 / 

the usual watchwords of 1848 — "freedom of the Press 
and of public meeting," " ministerial responsibility," 
and " civil liberty for all " — were re-echoed on the 
banks of the Danube. But there was a more ad- 
vanced section which advocated the. proclamation 
of Roumanian independence and a war, if need be, 
against Sultan and Czar alike. Some even dreamed 
of a big Roumania, which should include the Transyl- 
vanian brothers within its ampie frontiers, and the 
" lost, provinces " of Bessarabia and Bucovina. Mean- 
while, another revolution had taken place in Mol- 
davia. There Michael Stourza, who had had the 
wisdom to make considerable reforms, had no 
difficulty whatever in suppressing the movement 
without Russian aid. But the Czar thought that 
the time had come to make his power felt, and 
urged upon the Sultan the necessity for interven- 
tion. A Turkish commissioner was despatched to 
Bucharest, who requested the dissolution of the 
provisional government which had been formed on 
the flight of Bibescou, and the substitution in its 
place of a Lieutenancy under Turkish suzerainty. 
His request was obeyed, and a Lieutenancy of three 
persons established. The Turkish commissioner ex- 
pressed his satisfaction, and all seemed well. But 
this did not suit the autocrat of Russia. A 
Russian army occupied Moldavia on the pretext 
of " protecting " the Roumanians, and thence 
marched to Bucharest. The revolutionary leaders 
fled to Western Europe, the Roumanian Revolu- 
tion was at an end. Russia and Turkey concluded 
in 1849 the Convention of Balta-Liman, which 



98 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

limited the reigns of the Hospodars to seven years, 
suppressed all national assemblies, and replaced 
them by councils or divans, nominated by the 
prince in each principality. In order to destroy 
the last vestige of independence, the princes were 
to be no longer elected by the great nobles, but 
were nominated by the Sultan as suzerain, and the 
Czar as protector. Russia contrived to secure the 
appointment of men in both principalities, who were 
likely to serve her interests rather than those of the 
Turks. 

But the " doctrine of nationalities " was spreading 
all over Europe, and the Roumanians had become 
imbued with it. The chiefs of the Revolution dis- 
seminated their country's grievances wherever they 
were scattered. In France and England they found 
ready listeners. Lord Palmerston raised the Rou- 
manian question in the House of Commons; Ubicini, 
whose pen has done so much for Roumanian history, 
constantly reminded the French nation that there 
existed another branch of the Latin race under 
foreign rule. John Heliade published in Paris a 
defence of the Revolution ; and Constantine Rosetti 
appealed from exile to all parties in his native 
land to unite against alien domination. Western 
Europe woke up to the historical fact of a Rou- 
manian nationality, which had aspirations for free- 
dom and independence. A few shrewd diplomatists 
discovered that the Danubian principalities were not 
intended by their geographical position to be vassals 
of either Russia or Turkey, but might form a power- 
ful buffer-state between the two great rivals. Even 



THE CRIMEAN WAR. 99 

in the principalities themselves the new Hospodars, 
Barbe Stirbeiu and Gregory Ghika, appointed though 
they were by Russia and Turkey, encouraged the 
national movement by restoring Roumanian as the 
language of instruction. Then came the Crimean 
war, which led to the ultimate emancipation of both 
countries and their union under one sovereign. 

It is not necessary in this place to retell the oft- 
told tale of that great struggle between Russia and 
the Western Powers. It is sufficient to notice the 
war only as far as it affected the Danubian princi- 
palities. The Czar Nicholas I., in his ultimatum to 
the Sultan, threatened to invade them unless his 
demands were granted, and, as an unfavourable reply 
was despatched, lost no time in carrying out his 
threat. On July 3, 1853, General Gortschakoff 
crossed the Pruth, and for the eighth time a Russian 
army of occupation held Moldavia and Wallachia in 
its clutches. The two princes were informed that 
they might keep their thrones on condition of break- 
ing off relations with the Porte. The latter ordered 
them to hold no communication with Russia, but 
pay their accustomed tribute to their lawful suzerain 
as heretofore. Thus placed between the Russians 
and the Turks, the princes thought it prudent to 
flee, and left the supreme authority over their re- 
spective states in the hands of the Russian generals. 
On this occasion, however, the " liberators " had 
learned by experience. Efforts were made to win 
over the boyards, and offices were bestowed upon 
some of their number. Meanwhile, Turkey de- 
manded the withdrawal of the Imperial troops, and 



100 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

followed the demand by a declaration of war. Omar 
Pasha crossed the Danube at Vidin, and it looked 
as if the theatre of the war would, as so often before, 
be the unhappy principalities. Moving eastward to 
Oltenitza, a small place on the Roumanian bank of 
the river about forty miles from Bucharest, he repulsed 
the Russians in a three days' battle, and then retired 
across the river into Bulgaria. In the following 
spring the Russians in vain attempted the capture 
of Silistria and received another blow in Wallachia 
near Kalafat. But the intervention of the Western 
Powers in February 1854, and the threatening 
attitude of Austria compelled Nicholas to remove 
his forces. France and England insisted upon the 
evacuation of the Danubian states ; Austria massed 
troops on the Transylvanian frontier and held her- 
self in readiness to enforce the British and French 
ultimatum. The attacks of the allies upon the 
Crimea made it imperative upon the Czar to de- 
fend that part of his dominions, and in July, after 
another defeat at Giurgevo, his army marched out 
of the* principalities. The two Powers at once re- 
turned, and an Austrian army with them. For 
more than two years these new protectors remained 
in the country in accordance with an arrangement 
made with the Porte. The Roumanians had good 
reason for desiring to be defended from their 
defenders. 

The remaining operations of the war were con- 
ducted outside the principalities ; but they reaped 
full benefit from the victories of the allies when the 
Treaty of Paris was signed in 1856. The southern 



TREATV OF PARIS. lot 

part of Bessarabia was joined to Moldavia in order 
to keep Russia away from the Danube, and the delta 
of that river, which had been taken by the Russians 
in 1 812, was restored to Turkey for the same object. 
The Russian protectorate over the principalities was 
abolished, the course of the Danube placed under the 
control of an European commission, and the armed 
intervention of any one Power without the consent of 
the others expressly prohibited. The Sultan still 
retained his suzerainty, but promised to grant an 
" independent and national administration." At the 
Congress the representatives of France and England 
desired to go one step further and unite Moldavia 
and Wallachia in one Roumanian state, which would 
thus, as they pointed out, become a powerful barrier 
against Russian aggression in the Balkan Peninsula. 
But Austria and Turkey strongly opposed the idea, 
maintaining that the inhabitants were not in favour 
of a scheme which would mean the loss of their local 
customs. But public opinion in the two principalities 
was favourable to the union. Ever since the poet 
Vacarescou had apostrophised in indignant verse 
the " powerless rivulet," which " dared to keep the 
brothers apart," there had been an increasing desire 
for amalgamation. History had proved that the two 
states had had a common fate ; science showed them 
to be peopled by a common race ; practical ex- 
perience demonstrated that they had common in- 
terests and a common foe. The Russians themselves 
had admitted in the regulations which they drew up 
in 1834, that "secondary and fortuitous circum- 
stances alone had been responsible for the division," 



102 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

and they would have been prepared to support a 
union even then, provided that the united princi- 
palities could have been placed under a member of 
the Imperial family. Bibescou had contributed greatly 
to their political fusion by abolishing all customs-dues 
between them, and thus in Roumania as in Germany, 
a customs' union was the forerunner of national unity. 
The revolutionary leaders of 1848 had been inspired 
with the same idea, and their cause had gained the 
ardent support of Napoleon III., with whom the 
" doctrine of nationalities " was a passion. England 
was, however, won over to the Austrian view, and 
a compromise was the result. It was decided that 
the wishes of the inhabitants should be consulted on 
the subject. 

The elections, held under the auspices of Turkey, 
could only be an utter farce, for that Power was the 
principal opponent of the Unionist idea. Every effort 
was made by the adversaries of the scheme to gain 
the support of Moldavia, for that principality being 
the smaller of the two had most to lose by the pro- 
posed change, which would inevitably relegate Jassy 
to the position of a second-rate town. The Porte 
and its " Lieutenants," who carried on a provisional 
government in the principalities, left no stone un- 
turned to secure the election of anti-unionist bodies ; 
Unionist journals were suppressed ; Unionist meet- 
ings prohibited. The register of electors was care- 
fully "revised" in the interests of the Separatist 
party, and the Turkish authorities showed a marvel- 
lous appreciation of the causes which govern elections 
by arranging that Moldavia should vote first, and so 



THE ELECTIONS. 1 03 

exercise an unfavourable influence upon the Unionists 
of Wallachia. But the officials had not reckoned 
upon the wave of feeling which swept over the 
people. France aided the Roumanian cause, and 
threatened to break off relations with the Sultan, 
unless the opinions of the inhabitants were fairly and 
freely consulted. The sham elections were declared 
void ; a second appeal to the Moldavian people, this 
time unaccompanied by official intimidation or inter- 
ference, resulted in an overwhelming majority for the 
Union. Only two deputies out of eighty-five were 
opposed to it. The two constituent assemblies, or 
divans ad hoc, as they were called, met in the separate 
principalities and decided in favour of the Union of 
Wallachia and Moldavia in a single state, under the 
same government. This government was to consist 
of a foreign prince, a member of some reigning 
family, who was to be hereditary on condition that 
his heirs embraced the national religion. Bibescou, 
Stirbeiu, and Ghika all patriotically sacrificed them- 
selves to the interests of their country. By the side 
of the prince there was to be an assembly, elected on 
a wide franchise, which would represent the general 
interests of the people, and not those of the nobles 
alone. These decisions were communicated to the 
Powers, and the Convention of Paris in 1858 devised 
a scheme which was neither Union nor Separation. 
According to this diplomatic arrangement there were 
to be two princes, two national assemblies, and two 
governments, but one central committee to devise 
common laws for the " united principalities of Mol- 
davia and Wallachia," as they were officially desig- 



104 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

nated. But the diplomatists had not provided for 
the case of both principalities electing the same 
person. This was what now happened. When, 
in the early days of 1859, the election of the new 
Princes came on, Moldavia chose Colonel Alexander 
Couza, and Wallachia followed its example. Cleverly 
and quite unexpectedly the Roumanians had solved 
the problem which had baffled the collective wisdom 
of Europe. Just as in 1885 the union of the two 
Bulgarias, expressly prohibited in the Treaty of 
Berlin, was achieved by a popular movement which 
placed Alexander of Battenberg over both, so in 1859 
the union of the two Roumanian principalities, so 
hotly contested at the Congress of Paris, was quietly 
accomplished by the double election of Alexander 
Couza. Roumania had attained her long-sought 
unity Austria, just entering upon the Italian war, 
had no time to intervene ; two years later the Sultan, 
at the suggestion of the Powers, gave his formal con- 
sent to the arrangement. Union had been won, inde- 
pendence remained to be achieved. The united 
principalities had received on the 9th of November, 
1859, the name of " Roumania," but their position 
towards their suzerain remained the same. To him 
tribute was still paid, from his hands the prince re- 
ceived his investiture. 

The new " Prince of Roumania," who styled him- 
self Alexander John I., but was invariably known by 
his family name of Couza, sprang from an old Mol- 
davian family and had served his country, first in the 
army and then in the civil service. By his marriage 
with a daughter of a distinguished house he became 



coc/za's reign. io$ 

connected with all the highest nobles in the land, and 
his career from that moment was assured. His dis- 
missal from his post of Prefect of Galatz at the insti- 
gation of the Turkish authorities a couple of years 
earlier had won him great renown as a patriot and 
a subsequent appointment as Minister of War. He 
was, with that exception, little known, and this fact 
was an advantage in the eyes of the deputies. Much 
was expected from him, while the abilities of other 
candidates had already been accurately gauged. 

But Couza sadly disappointed these great expec- 
tations. A series of ministerial crises, followed by- 
perpetual dissolutions of the legislature, created a 
feeling of unrest which was increased by the finan- 
cial blunders of the new government. Roumania 
was not really ripe for a very elaborate constitution 
such as she had received, and she naturally made 
mistakes at the outset of her career. Couza's 
measures were at the same moment ultra -demo- 
cratic and despotic. His motto was that of Rabagas 
in Sardou's play, that " the happiness of the people 
could only be established by a coup detat" He 
alienated the clergy by the confiscation of the pro- 
perty of the Roumanian monasteries, which was 
declared invalid by the Powers, unless pecuniary 
compensation were paid. He abolished the feudal 
obligations of the peasantry which had long been the 
curse of Roumania, and by a stroke of the pen 
created a class of peasant-proprietors, who were 
allotted the lands of the boyards at low prices fixed 
by the Government. These two measures estranged 
the sympathies of the nobles and the priests, who 



Io6 THE UNION OP THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

were accordingly brought under control by being 
made officials of the State. A coup d'etat in May, 
1864, rid him of the National Assembly, and called 
a Senate into existence on the basis of universal suf- 
frage. But Couza's popularity with the masses was 
undermined by the tobacco monopoly which he in- 
troduced, for in Roumania every one smokes. He 
became more and more autocratic, and attempted 
to govern without a Budget. His avarice was no- 
torious ; his morals, or the want of them, were the 
common talk of Bucharest. People forgot his public 
services and remembered only his private vices. He 
had founded a University at Jassy, introduced the 
telegraph into the country, improved the coinage, 
embellished and increased the towns, and gave any 
person a plot of ground in the suburbs of the capital 
free of cost, on condition that he would promise in 
writing to erect a suitable dwelling-house on it within 
three years' time. But the boyards had long been 
discontented with their old colleague and now that 
the masses were against him, they had no difficulty 
in compassing his fall. The story of his forced abdi- 
cation is doubly interesting, because it formed the 
precedent which was afterwards followed by the 
Bulgarians who deposed Prince Alexander. On 
February 23, 1866, a body of forty conspirators, under 
the command of General Golescou, entered the palace, 
forced open the door of the Prince's bedroom, and 
discovered him there with one of his mistresses half 
undressed. Couza, cowed at the sight of their loaded 
revolvers, asked feebly what they wanted. They re- 
plied that they wanted his abdication. Pen and ink 



COUZAS ABDICATION. lO? 

were provided, and one of the conspirators knelt 
down with his back to the Prince and offered his 
bent shoulders as an impromptu writing-desk. There 
was no alternative but to sign the deed of abdication, 
and the Prince yielded. He was allowed to dress, 
and then driven away from the palace. Not a hand 
was raised in his defence, not a voice pleaded his 
cause. He was permitted to withdraw with the spoils 
of office to Paris, the haven of Balkan princes in 
retirement, and Roumania concerned herself with 
him no more. A provisional government was formed 
with Golescou at the head, and a proclamation issued 
calling upon the nation to proceed to the election 
of a foreign prince as its chief, and deploring the 
" anarchy and corruption " which had marked the 
seven years of Couza's reign. By an almost unani- 
mous vote the two Chambers of the united princi- 
palities elected the Count of Flanders, younger 
brother of the King of Belgium, as Prince of 
Roumania. But the Sultan protested against the 
recent action of the people, and convened a Con- 
ference of the Great Powers in Paris to consider the 
situation ; a Turkish army corps was mobilised in 
Bulgaria, and the threatening secession in Moldavia 
completed the dangers which awaited the new ruler. 
The Count of Flanders declined the proffered honour, 
and a new candidate, Prince Charles of Hohenzojlern- 
Sigmaringen, a connection of the Prussian reigning 
house, was put up in his stead. The Prince was 
unanimously elected by a plebiscite of the whole 
people and proclaimed on the 20th of April. The 
Paris Conference declared his election null and void ; 



Io8 THE UNION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 

but Prince Charles, acting on the instigation of Bis- 
marck, resolved to set its decisions at defiance. The 
great Prussian statesman sent for the young officer of 
dragoons, as thirteen years afterwards he sent for 
Prince Alexander of Battenberg, and advised him to 
go straight to Bucharest, adding in a phrase, which he 
repeated on that occasion : " If you fail, you will at 
any rate have a pleasant reminiscence for the rest of 
your life." On the 22nd of May, the Prince, who had 
travelled through Austria in disguise, arrived at his 
capital and was received with the utmost enthusiasm 
by his people. The Sultan protested, and demanded 
from the Conference permission to occupy the country 
with an army. The Conference refused, but war 
seemed certain. The Sultan appointed the re- 
doubtable Omar Pasha to the command of the 
troops on one bank of the Danube ; the Rou- 
manians were massed to resist him on the other. 
But the success of the Prussian arms over Austria 
at the battle of Koniggratz and the Cretan insurrec- 
tion diverted the attention of both Austria and 
Turkey " from Roumanian affairs. The Conference 
of the Powers relented, the Sultan yielded, and both 
gave their sanction to the election of the new Prince. 
The Roumanian crisis was at an end. 



VII. 



ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 



Prince Charles was proclaimed ruler of Rou- 
mania jon his twenty-seventh birthday. His father 
was head of the non-reigning branch of the great 
Hohenzollern family, and had acted for a short time 
as Prussian Premier ; his grandmother had been con- 
nected with the house of Bonaparte. He was thus 
on the best of terms with the two great Powers which 
dominated the West of Europe in 1866. His training 
had been that of an officer in a crack Prussian regi- 
ment, and stood him in good stead at a critical period 
of his career. But he was much more than a mere 
soldier. He was liberal in his ideas for a Hohenzol- 
lern, and filled with that deep sense of duty which 
has always been a marked characteristic of that 
powerful race. He at once made it his business to 
study the requirements of the nation which had sum- 
moned him to preside over its destinies. He soon 
acquired great personal knowledge of the land and 
its inhabitants, and found ample scope for his favourite 
hobby of forestry in the woods of the Carpathians. 
By his marriage with Princess Pauline Elizabeth of 



110 ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 

Wied, he gained a consort who gracefully seconded 
his efforts to identify the foreign dynasty with the 
interests of its adopted country. The Queen of 
Roumania is known all -over Europe, under the pseu- 
donym of " Carmen Sylva," as a royal authoress, who, 
even if she had not had the advantages of rank, 
would still have made a name in literature. Her 
poems and stories, the collection of Roumanian folk- 
lore which she has published, and the encouragement 
which she has given to the national idea by her pre- 
ference for the Roumanian dress and her patronage 
of the old Roumanian customs, have won her general 
esteem. " Carmen Sylva " has bidden a poetic fare- 
well " for ever " to her father's castle on the Rhine, 
and has made her home on the slopes of the Car- 
pathians and on the banks of the Danube. Her own 
writings and her husband's soldierly qualities have 
made the name of Roumania familiar to the world. 
The difficulties which beset the new Government at 
the outset have gradually disappeared, and the sove- 
reign, who at one time thought of resigning in conse- 
quence 6f the bitterness of party spirit and the 
opposition of the politicians to his methods, has just 
celebrated, amidst universal rejoicings, the thirtieth 
anniversary of his reign. The intrigues of the revolu- 
tionary party, which professed to desire a Republic, 
the extreme licence of the press, and the perpetual 
changes of ministry, which characterised his three 
first years in Roumania, have given place to a general 
recognition of his services to a country, which, after 
centuries of misgovernment, has at last found repose. 
The first act of the new Prince was to sign the 



THE CONSTITUTION. I I I 

Constitution, which had been drawn up by a Con- 
stituent Assembly directly after his accession. The 
Constitution of 1866 gave the Roumanians a free 
press and free compulsory education, and guaranteed 
freedom of conscience and public meeting. But the 
religious toleration thus enjoined has not prevented 
bitter attacks upon the Jews, whose commercial 
supremacy aroused the jealousy of the less enter- 
prising natives. Roumania has had her Judenhetze 
no less than Russia and Germany, and the free press 
has stimulated the agitation, which has been at last 
suppressed by force. Besides the Prince, a Senate 
and an indirectly-elected Chamber of Deputies com- 
posed the Government. This constitution, with 
modifications introduced in 1879 and 1884, has 
existed ever since, and has, on the whole, worked 
well. The Roumanians, like other branches of the 
Latin race, import a large amount of vehement 
speaking into political life, and are apt to be easily 
excited. But their country has been fortunate in 
the possession of statesmen such as M. Constantine 
Rosetti and M. John Bratiano, who would have made 
their mark in any assembly, and the experiment of 
parliamentary government has succeeded there better 
than in either Servia or Bulgaria. 

The military training of Prince Charles had con- 
vinced him of the necessity of a strong and dis- 
ciplined army for a country situated like Roumania, 
between the twin fires of Russia and Turkey. At his 
accession to the throne he found in existence a small 
military force, full of enthusiasm, but sadly deficient 
in organisation and arms. Couza had, under French 



112 ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 

auspices, increased it from 8,400 to 25,000; his suc- 
cessor obtained permission from his suzerain, bliss- 
fully unconscious of the use to which the troops 
would soon be put, to raise the number to 30,000. 
He then bought a large supply of the Prussian 
breechloaders, which had just done such signal ser- 
vice against the Austrians, and borrowed Prussian 
instructors to train his raw levies on the most 
approved model. The Roumanian army soon be- 
came an important factor in the politics of the 
Balkan Peninsula ; and, before its creator had been 
many years on the throne, it had proved, beneath the 
walls of Plevna, that it was capable, under proper 
guidance, of great military achievements. The assist- 
ance of Roumania has become an object of consider- 
able value in any war in the East ; and, in addition 
to her very efficient army, she now, alone of the 
Balkan States, possesses the nucleus of a navy. 
Even the great military Powers of the Triple Alliance 
would not disdain the aid of a nation at once so well 
armed and so opportunely placed. 

The • Eastern Question, which became acute in 
1876, naturally affected the interests of Roumania in 
the most vital manner. Under the rule of Prince 
Charles, she had accustomed herself to consider the 
suzerainty of the Sultan as a mere form ; and accord- 
ingly when Midhat's abortive constitution proclaimed 
the unity and indivisibility of the Turkish Empire, 
including the privileged provinces, and gave the 
name of Ottomans to the Sultan's subjects and vassals 
of every race and creed, the indignation at Bucharest 
knew no bounds. Roumania, which had taken no 



THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR. I I 3 

part whatever in the war between Turkey and Servia 
and Montenegro, was aghast at the idea of being 
treated as a Turkish province, and resolved to put an 
end for ever to the semblance of authority which the 
Sultan still possessed over her. On April 16, 1877, 
a secret convention was signed with Russia, which 
placed a free passage through Roumania at the dis- 
posal of the Czar's troops, without, however, pro- 
mising the active co-operation of the Roumanian 
army. The Porte denounced this convention as a 
violation of the Treaty of Paris, but in vain. The 
Sultan then took the matter into his own hands. He 
issued an Irade, deposing Prince Charles, and ordered 
the Turkish monitors on the Danube to bombard 
Kalafat. The reply was the declaration of war by 
Roumania and the proclamation of her independence 
on May 21st. Nearly five hundred years had passed 
away since Mirtschea the Old had first acknowledged 
the overlordship of the Sultan. At last the long 
period of dependence was over. Roumania was. free. 
For the first three months after the declaration of 
war the Roumanian troops took comparatively little 
part in the active hostilities between the Russian and 
Turkish armies. The railways, hospitals, and every 
other advantage which the principality possessed 
were placed at the disposal of the Imperial forces, and 
the Prince devoted himself to improving the defences 
of his country along the Danube. So long as the 
Russians were successful, Roumania pursued the 
policy of protecting her own frontier. But when the 
armies of the Czar were checked at Plevna and at 
Erzeroum, when the balance of victory was on the 

9 



114 ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 

side of the Turks, then Prince Charles hesitated no 
longer. Crossing the Danube at the head of twenty- 
eight thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, 
he soon made himself so invaluable to his allies, that 
he was appointed Commander-in-chief of the Russian 
and Roumanian forces before Plevna. The Rou- 
manians had already shown, during the bombard- 
ment of Kalafat, that, if they lacked experience, they 
were not wanting in courage ; and the Russian 
veterans soon recognised that the soldiers of Prince 
Charles were not the unskilled amateurs whom they 
had at first imagined them to be. 

The post of danger in front of the famous Grivica 
redoubt, the strongest of all the fortifications which 
defended Plevna, was entrusted to the Roumanian 
army. Onlookers of the operations believed the task 
of taking this redoubt absolutely impossible, even if 
the besiegers "bombarded it for a week and sacrificed 
a brigade of infantry in the attempt." The fact that 
the position was allotted to the Roumanians, who 
were numerically much weaker than their Muscovite 
allies, "was regarded as a proof that nothing more 
than a " demonstration " was intended. But the 
Roumanian gunners soon showed that they meant 
business, and picked off the Turkish artillerymen 
with unerring aim. On September nth a grand 
attack was made on the " indomitable redoubt " by 
the allies. But the Russians arrived, by an accident, 
half an hour too late, and at first the battalions of 
Prince Charles were repulsed. Three hours later a 
second assault proved more successful. The redoubt 
was captured, and the Turks driven back. But a fog 



THE OR I VIC A REDOUBT. I I 5 

came on, and the Roumanian reserves, who had been 
ordered up to occupy the position so lately won, lost 
their way, and thus allowed the enemy to recapture 
the works. But it was not for long. A third attack, 
later in the evening, utterly routed the brave de- 
fenders of the redoubt. No further attempt was 
made to recover it ; and when the sun rose next 
morning, it revealed to the astonished hosts the 
spectacle of the Roumanian colours proudly floating 
from the summit of the terrible outworks of Grivica. 
But the thrice-fought struggle for the redoubt had 
been dearly bought. An eye-witness, who visited the 
place a few hours after the last assault, found the 
whole of the interior choked with heaps of dead and 
wounded, Turks and Roumanians, lying in inextric- 
able confusion, uncared for and unheeded. No 
doctor was at hand to ease the sufferings of the 
injured, no comrade was there to soothe the last 
moments of the dying. Amid the horrors of the 
siege, there was no time to think of the victims which 
it claimed. 

A second redoubt, scarcely less formidable than 
the first, was next attacked. For a week the Rou- 
manians tried in vain to capture it, and then, finding 
their efforts unsuccessful, set to work to dig trenches, 
so as to approach the hostile lines. Impartial critics 
could not help contrasting their perseverance with 
the apathy of the Russians, who remained quietly 
waiting for reinforcements, while their allies were 
slowly but surely advancing. Outside the lines of 
Plevna, at Rahova, on the Bulgarian bank of the 
Danube, they gained fresh laurels by the occupation 



Il6 ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 

of that town ; and when, on December 10th, Plevna 
at last fell, and Osman Pasha, its brave defender, sur- 
rendered, every one admitted that no small share of 
the credit for its capture was due to the soldiers of 
Prince Charles. The independence of Roumania had 
been won on the Grivica redoubt. 

But a long and bitter experience of former Russo- 
Turkish wars had taught the Roumanians that there 
is little gratitude in politics. From the first there had 
been considerable opposition to the alliance with 
Russia among those who remembered her past con- 
duct towards their country. The fall of Plevna for 
the moment, however, had united all parties in general 
rejoicings, and when the " Czar liberator " arrived at 
Bucharest on his way back from the seat of war, he 
was greeted with enthusiasm. But the Treaty of San 
Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878, justified the sus- 
picions of the Roumanian people. While, on the one 
hand, the Porte formally recognised the independence 
of Roumania ; Russia, on the other, acquired from 
Turkey the district between the Danube and the 
Black Sea, known as the Dobrudza, with the express 
object of exchanging it for the southern part of Bess- 
arabia, which had been taken from the Czar and 
given to Roumania after the Crimean war. The 
subsequent Treaty of Berlin, which in so many ways 
amended the arrangements made at San Stefano, 
confirmed this exchange, with the slight modification 
that a rather larger strip of territory was given to 
Roumania. But Russia had by far the best of the 
bargain. The extra piece of land awarded to Rou- 
mania was taken not from her, but from Bulgaria. 



THE TREATY OF BERLIN. W] 

The Czar's dominions were once more bounded by 
the Pruth, and once more the Roumanians had cause 
to hate the name of the " accursed stream," which, 
after an interval of twenty-two years, again separated 
them from their kinsfolk in Bessarabia. At the end 
of 1878 the exchange was effected, to the great grief of 
the Roumanians, who felt that their heroic sacrifices 
at Plevna should not have been thus rewarded. Bess- 
arabia had been part of the old Moldavian princi- 
pality ; its name enshrined the memory of a once 
famous Roumanian family; its loss in 18 12 had been 
bitterly lamented and only partially compensated for 
by the surrender of a portion of it in 1856. Now it 
was all gone again. On the other hand, the Dobrudza 
was of less value, and inhabited by a mixed popula- 
tion, which comprised many Bulgarians and Turks 
as well as Roumanians. But the greatest point of all 
had been gained — the formal recognition of Rou- 
mania as a sovereign state. As the Prince expressed 
it, there was an end to those " ill-defined ties, which 
were known at Constantinople as suzerainty, at Bucha- 
rest as vassalage." But for a ruler who controlled the 
destinies of so proud and ancient a race, and whose 
dominions covered nearly fifty thousand square miles, 
the title seemed inadequate. On March 26, 1881, 
Roumania proclaimed herself a kingdom, and the 
Prince styled himself King Carol I. As an appro- 
priate sign that Roumania, like Germany, had won 
her position among the nations " not by the decrees 
of majorities, but by blood and iron," the crown of her 
first king was made from the Turkish cannon which 
he had captured at Plevna. 



tl8 ROUMANIA AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM. 

From that time onwards Roumania has belonged 
to that fortunate class of countries which have no 
history. She has gone on increasing in prosperity 
and strength ; the succession to the throne has been 
made doubly sure by the marriage of her Crown 
Prince with a granddaughter of Queen Victoria ; the 
capacity of her people for self-government has been 
tried. If some ardent patriots still cherish the dream 
of a big Roumania, which shall embrace the Rou- 
manians of Transylvania and Bessarabia, no less than 
those of the kingdom, all moderate men are content 
with what has been won, and none regret the bygone 
days of Turkish suzerainty. 




PART II. 

BULGARIA. 

" The glory of the Bulgarians was confined to a narrow scope 
both of time and place." — Gibbon. 

"The Bulgarian is not devoid of those unobtrusive household 
virtues, which enrich the state, and keep at a distance the vice and 
the pauperism which are the cancers of the more crowded com- 
munities of Europe." — A. A. Paton, The Bulgarian, the Turk, and 
the German. 

I. 



FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE CONVERSION 
OF THE BULGARIANS. 



(864 A.D.) 



The early history of Bulgaria is shrouded in 
mystery. The discovery of ancient tombs near 
Trnovo and Philippopolis points to the existence of a 
primitive civilisation in that part of the Balkan Penin- 
sula. But of this no other traces remain, and when 
we first hear of the country it was inhabited by wild 
Thracian and Illyrian tribes, of whom Herodotus said 

that " if they were only ruled by one man and could 

119 



120 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

only agree among themselves, they would be the 
greatest of all nations." For a moment some chief- 
tain, stronger than his fellows, might succeed in bring- 
ing about a temporary union. But the tribes lived, 
as a rule, in perpetual feud with each other, until the 
strong hand of Philip of Macedon subjected them all 
to his authority. Philip is the first great name in the 
history of the land ; a name perpetuated in that of 
the picturesque capital of South Bulgaria ; and the 
union of Bulgaria and Macedonia under his sceptre is 
still regarded with admiration by many Bulgarian 
politicians. But the Macedonian supremacy was 
short-lived ; upon the death of Alexander the Great, 
the Thracians, who had composed so large a part 
of his armies, returned to the congenial business of 
flying at each other's throats. Other barbarous tribes 
joined in their quarrels, until, during the second Punic 
War, the Romans made their first appearance in Bul- 
garia. The Thracian and Illyrian warriors now com- 
bined in self-defence ; the struggle lasted for a century 
and a half ; the conquerors at first permitted the 
native princes of Thrace proper, south of the Balkans, 
to retain their thrones on payment of a tribute, and 
then reduced their country, like the region between 
the Balkans and the Danube, to a province. Mcesia, 
as the latter was called, was conquered by Crassus 
and brought under the immediate sway of Rome in 29 
B.C. ; Thracia, as the former was officially designated, 
became a part of the Roman Empire in the reign of 
Tiberius in 26 A.D. The name of Mcesia was retained 
until the evacuation of Dacia by Aurelian, described 
in the first part of the book, when it was changed to 



ROMAN KEMA1XS. 



121 



that of Dacia Aureliani. Considerable remains of 
this Roman occupation exist at the present day. The 
marble pillars brought from Nikopul by one of the 
Bulgarian Czars to adorn the famous " Church of the 
Forty Martyrs " at Trnovo are perhaps the best known 




ROMAN SCULPTURE AT NICOPOUS. 

of these relics. But the Roman influence was not 
permanent in Bulgaria as it has been in Roumania. 
For a time the Latin language made headway in the 
country, and the land, where the exiled Ovid had 
once complained that none could understand him, 
produced Latin authors of its own. But the local 



122 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

dialect was soon formed, and the flood of barbarian 
invasion finally swept the traces of Western culture 
away. To this day the Bulgarians are less refined, 
less luxurious, and less European than their neighbours 
across the Danube. 

As early as the time of Constantine, who included 
what is now Bulgaria among his provinces, hordes of 
uncouth warriors had begun to pour into the country. 
At first the new and the old elements appear to have 
combined harmoniously. An author of the fourth 
century describes the territory south of the Danube 
as inhabited by a dense population, half Roman, half 
barbarian, which united the fresh energies of the new- 
comers to the civilisation of the Western race. But 
this state of things was not of long duration. Other 
and fiercer tribes swooped down upon the promised 
lands. The Goths ravaged the country in their terrible 
march of destruction from the Bosphorus to the Alps. 
The Huns, who followed them, exacted a tribute as 
well. On the death of Attila, their ruler, a number 
of smaller tribes, who had accepted his sway, flooded 
the province. In some parts the entire population is 
said to have perished by their swords. At this period 
the country resembled a kaleidoscope, in which a 
series of apparitions is presented, each more horrible 
than the last. One race stands out pre-eminent above 
the others in this grim transformation scene. It is 
now that we hear for the first time in Bulgarian 
history of the Slavs. 

The precise date, at which this remarkable tribe 
first made its appearance south of the Danube, is 
doubtful. According to one theory, indeed, the Slavs 



ORIGIN OF THE BULGARIANS. 123 

were the original inhabitants, children of the soil, of 
whom no one knew whence they came. This opinion, 
however gratifying it may be to the pride of a great 
race, is disproved by the best Bulgarian historian, who 
regards them as foreigners, like the Goths and Huns. 
But whether they first entered Bulgaria in the third 
century, or considerably later, is uncertain. At any 
rate, by the seventh century they are found settled 
there. From them and the other tribes who subse- 
quently mixed with them, the modern Bulgarians are 
descended, and derive their language, customs, and 
habits of thought. The Slavs drove the survivors of 
the old Thracian and Illyrian population before them 
to the mountains and occupied their lands in the 
plains. But they were not permitted to perpetuate 
their dominion. In the second half of the seventh 
century the Bulgari crossed the Danube and entered 
the territory which has ever since borne their name. 

The origin of these Bulgarian invaders has been 
much disputed. The best authorities, arguing from 
the obvious difference between their mode of life and 
that of the Slav races as well as from the Oriental 
names of their ancient rulers, have decided that the 
Bulgarians were an Asiatic tribe, totally unconnected 
with the Slavs. . Some regard them as of Finnish 
stock, others as a Tartar people, and others again as 
of Turkish blood. It seems probable, however, that 
their former home was on the banks of the Volga, 
a river from which some have derived their name. 
But it is much more likely that the men gave their 
name to the river, rather than the river to the men. 
Their history, previous to their arrival in what is now 



124 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

Bulgaria, borders on the marvellous. We read of 
primitive Bulgarian princes, whose ages rivalled that 
of Methuselah, and whose reigns averaged a century 
apiece. An ancient chronicler even purports to give 
a complete list of these patriarchal rulers. One of 
them, Kurt or Kuvrat, was sufficiently important to 
be accepted as an ally by the Emperor Heraclius, 
and defeated the Avars who had besieged Constanti- 
nople, and brought the Bulgarians under their yoke. 
Upon his death, his five sons, according to a pictur- 
esque story, divided his substance and set out in 
different directions, each accompanied by a band of 
followers, in search of fame and fortune. It is 
probable, however, that this division of the Bulgarian 
stock had taken place much earlier. We read of 
battles with the Bulgarians in the reign of Theodoric, 
and they had doubtless made earlier incursions into 
the Balkan Peninsula. But it was not till the year 
679, when Isparich, Kuvrat's son, was their chief, that 
they crossed from Bessarabia and established them- 
selves in the region south of the Danube. At first 
they were concentrated on the shore of the Black 
Sea, in the Dobrudza, and at Silistria, all places 
where the Turkish element has ever since been the 
strongest. Gradually their influence extended, but 
while they conquered the country they were all the 
time being quietly vanquished by the conquered. 
They slowly adopted the customs and language of 
the Slavs, who absorbed them, just as the Saxons 
absorbed their Norman conquerors in England. By 
a curious compensation, the Bulgarians kept their 
name but lost their language, while the Slavs kept 






CUSTOMS OF THE BULGARIANS. 1 25 

their language but lost their name. The old Bulgarian 
tongue of the invaders has left no mark upon the 
modern speech of the people ; for such words in the 
Bulgarian language of to-day as are not of Slav 
origin, may be traced to the old Thracian and Illyrian 
settlers. But the Bulgarians succeeded in imposing 
their name upon the combined mass of people, who 
dwelt in the land, henceforth called Bulgaria. Two 
and a half centuries were required to complete the 
amalgamation of the two races. The present inhabi- 
tants of the principality are therefore descended from 
two separate stocks — the Slavs and the old Bulgarians 
— which were welded together between the seventh 
and the ninth centuries. The Slav element predomi- 
nated, and of the old Bulgarians little now remains 
but the name. 

The primitive customs of these old Bulgarians were 
in many respects the opposite of those of the Slavs. 
In war the Bulgarians fought mostly on horseback, 
the Slavs chiefly on foot ; the former had usually 
several wives, the latter generally only one ; the 
institutions of the former were aristocratic, those of 
the latter democratic. The wide trousers, worn by the 
Bulgarians of both sexes, the veils of the women, the 
turbans of the men, betrayed their Asiatic origin. 
The principal Bulgarian food was meat, and the 
number of fast-days was a great obstacle to their 
conversion to Christianity. The Slavs, on the other 
hand, lived on bread, fruit, and vegetables, as well as 
flesh. The Bulgarians were as cruel to their prisoners 
as the Slavs were lenient, and in time of peace the 
punishments which they inflicted were severe. Their 



126 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

chief, called khan, was surrounded by an elaborate 
system of Oriental etiquette, while the Slavs never 
submitted to the rule of one man. In short, the 
two races, at the moment when they met, were the 
antitheses of each other. 

While the Bulgarians have given their name to 
the country, the Slav language has supplied the 
designations of most of its towns. Jablanica is 
christened by the Slav name for an apple, Bukovica 
by the Slav term for the beech. The fort or grad, 
which was always built in Slav communities, has 
supplied the suffix to countless names of towns. It 
is no wonder, then, that the Russians have regarded 
the modern Bulgarians as their " little brothers," and 
that many of the latter have looked for protection to 
the head of the great Slav community. 

The two centuries, which intervened between the 
settlement of the Bulgarians on the right bank of 
the Danube and their conversion to Christianity, were 
chiefly occupied in sanguinary campaigns with the 
Eastern Empire. 

The pbwer of the new-comers was speedily recog- 
nised by the feeble emperors, who were the unworthy 
successors of the ancient Romans. True to their 
policy of buying the aid of one barbarous nation 
to repel the assaults of another, they consented to 
pay tribute to the Bulgarian prince and to give up 
their own claims to the ancient province of Mcesia, 
in order that Thrace might be spared. Justinian II., 
however, refused to continue this payment to Isperich, 
and a war followed, in which the Emperor, at first 
successful, finally escaped with difficulty from the 



POWER OF THE BULGARIANS. \2J 

hands of his enemy. Isperich's successor, Tervel, 
was the means of restoring the banished tyrant to 
his throne. When Justinian, after several years' 
exile, landed in a tiny skiff at the mouths of the 
Danube, he found the Bulgarian prince ready to 
forget his past animosity and assist his future enter- 
prise. Bribed by the promise of the Emperor's 
daughter and a fair share of the Imperial treasure, 
Tervel, whose dominions extended to the borders 
of Thrace, besieged Constantinople and restored its 
master. Justinian rewarded his benefactor with a 
heap of gold, which the Bulgarian " measured with 
his whip," and bestowed upon him the title of Caesar. 
But the benefits which he had received soon rankled 
in his mind. He again declared war on the Bul- 
garians, only to be defeated by them once more. A 
few years later we find Tervel concluding a treaty 
of peace with the Empire, and relieving Constanti- 
nople from the attacks of the Arabs. The last act 
of his reign was an attempt to foist another emperor 
upon the Byzantines. These facts show that very 
soon after their establishment in their new home, the 
Bulgarians became a powerful people, whose influence 
reached to the Bosphorus. Kormisos, the next of 
their princes, of whom history has anything to record, 
was, after the monks, the chief object of Constan- 
tine V.'s aversion. This Emperor undertook no fewer 
than eight campaigns against the Bulgarians, and 
erected new fortifications in Thrace for the express 
purpose of keeping them in order. Kormisos at 
one moment had almost reached Constantinople ; at 
another he was forced to sue for peace. But he soon 



128 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

recovered from his humiliation, and inflicted a severe 
defeat on the Emperor near Varna. But internal 
discord marred the effects of this victory. Many 
Slavs migrated from Bulgaria to Asia Minor ; civil 
wars raged in the land ; the old line of Bulgarian 
princes disappeared, and a youth named Telec was 
chosen ruler. This was Constantine's opportunity ; 
he utterly routed the Bulgarian army ; the captives 
were carried off to grace his triumph at Constanti- 
nople and butchered before the Golden Gate ; Telec 
himself fell beneath the blows of his own infuriated 
subjects. Complete confusion followed ; the Bul- 
garians, divided into rival camps, seemed to the 
Emperor an easy prey. He marched once more into 
their country and laid many of their villages in ashes. 
But the advent of Cerig, a strong and crafty prince, 
prevented the incorporation of Bulgaria with the 
Empire. By a cunning trick, he obtained from Con- 
stantine the name of every traitor in the land, and 
at once put them all to death. His successor ex- 
torted an annual tribute from the Empress Irene and 
restored the influence of his race. 

A still more powerful prince now mounted the 
throne. The name of Krum was long remembered 
as that of the strongest and most bloodthirsty of 
these old Bulgarian chiefs ; for, in the phrase of 
Gibbon, he " could boast an honour, which had 
hitherto been appropriated to the Goths, that of 
slaying in battle one of the successors of Augustus 
and Constantine." It was Krum's capture of Sofia, 
the present capital of Bulgaria, from the Eastern 
Empire in 809, which led to this memorable event. 



DEFEAT OF XICEPHORUS. 



129 



At first, as we have seen, the Bulgarians had gathered 
round Varna and the mouths of the Danube, but 
under Krum they had occupied a large part of what 
is now Roumania and were spreading westward 
towards modern Servia. Nicephorus, the Greek 
Emperor, was resolved to avenge this audacious act. 




BULGARIAN ATTACK ON CONSTANTINOPLE IN 813. 

He assembled a huge army, burnt Krum's wooden 
palace to the ground, and devastated the country with 
fire and sword. But his crafty enemy blocked the 
Balkan passes in his rear ; the Emperor saw that he 
was caught, and exclaimed in his despair, " unless we 

had the wings of birds, we could not escape." A 

10 



130 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

fierce battle ensued ; the whole Imperial army was 
annihilated ; no quarter was given, and the cruel 
Bulgarian prince, following the custom of his race, 
ordered the head of his adversary to be cut off, and 
used the skull as a goblet at his feasts. Krum then 
marched into Thrace, routed the successor of Nice- 
phorus, who tried in vain to resist his march, and 
encamped before the walls of Constantinople. The 
barbarian is said to have begun the siege with the 
most elaborate ceremonies. Human sacrifices were 
offered up before the Golden Gate, the chief washed 
his feet in the waves of the Bosphorus and sprinkled 
his people with its water, while his wives did obeis- 
ance to him in the sight of the defenders on the walls. 
In order to save his capital, the Emperor agreed to 
give him a yearly tribute, a quantity of fine clothing, 
and a fixed number of maidens. During the negoti- 
ations, however, Krum himself was nearly slain, and 
in his rage at this treachery, he laid waste the out- 
skirts of the city and then retired with a host of 
captives, among them the future Emperor, Basil I. 
On a second expedition against Constantinople, 
Krum was seized with apoplexy and died. Omortag, 
the next Bulgarian prince, of whom anything is 
known, made a long peace with the Eastern Empire, 
and devoted his attention to the Franks, who had 
become his neighbours on the west. But his expe- 
dition up the river Drave and his occupation of the 
territory between that stream and the Save had 
merely temporary results. He is now chiefly remem- 
bered for the remarkable inscription, discovered forty 
years ago on a pillar in the "Church of the Forty 



BORIS I. ADOPTS CHRISTIANITY. I 3 1 

Martyrs" at Trnovo, which tells of a great house 
which he built, and for his persecution of the Chris- 
tians. But the efforts of this Bulgarian Diocletian 
were powerless to prevent the adoption of Christianity 
by his people. 

Even before the coming of the Bulgarians, the 
Church had made considerable headway among 
the Slavs. The wars between Krum and the Greek 
Emperors were indirectly the means of spreading the 
gospel, owing to the great numbers of Christians, 
whom the Bulgarian conqueror led captive to his 
own country. The prisoners, many of them priests 
and some even bishops, did not hide their faith from 
their gaolers, and so successful was their preaching, 
that Omortag became alarmed. His execution of 
four bishops and several hundred other Christians 
only increased the zeal of the missionaries. Converts 
were made in high places, and a brother of Omortag's 
successor, in whose reign we hear of the first war 
between Serbs and Bulgarians, died a martyr to the 
new religion. The next prince, Boris I., adopted the 
creed which his predecessor had proscribed, and from 
his conversion in 864 the formal recognition of Chris- 
tianity in Bulgaria dates. Throughout the history of 
the country religion has played a most important 
part, and to this day Bulgarian politics are coloured 
by the decision of Boris a thousand years ago. The 
motives which prompted the Prince to become a 
Christian were political rather than religious. Two 
pretty stories have, indeed, been circulated. Accord- 
ing to one, his sister, who had been carried off a 
captive by the Greeks, convinced her brother on her 



I32 THE CONVERSION OE THE BULGARIANS. 

return of the beauties of the religion, which she had 
learnt in prison. According to the other, a Greek 
named Methodius terrified the conscience -stricken 
Bulgarian by the fiery picture which he drew of 
the Last Judgment. But the story is due to a con- 
fusion of names. The apostles of Bulgaria were two 
brothers, Constantine and Methodius, the latter of 
whom has been mistaken for the painter. These 
brothers, born at Salonica, of which their father was a 
high military official, early devoted themselves to 
missionary work. They had an intimate acquaintance 
with the Slav language, and Constantine is said to 
have invented the written character which is still 
called " Cyrillic " after his adopted name of Cyril. 
Partly by preaching, partly by their Slav translations 
of the Bible, they acquired great influence in Moravia 
and the regions bordering on Bulgaria, and Boris at 
last found that he was becoming isolated by the 
conversion of his neighbours. He saw that it would 
be to his advantage to make profession of the new 
faith. The opportunity soon offered itself. A war 
with the Greek Emperor Michael III. brought him 
into contact with the Eastern Church. On the spot, 
where the treaty of peace was signed, the Bulgarian 
prince was baptised under the name of Michael, out 
of compliment to the Emperor, who had acted as his 
godfather. Many of his nobles followed his example, 
and the cession of territory by the Greeks confirmed 
them in their belief. But the Bulgarian aristocracy 
was by no means unanimous in its zeal for Chris- 
tianity. Boris had to suppress a rising, which aimed 
at the substitution of a pagan ruler for himself. The 



BORIS I. AXD THE POPE. I 33 

heathen element among the nobles was exterminated 
with ferocious cruelty, and Bulgaria received from her 
prince a baptism of blood. 

Boris hesitated long between the Greek and the 
Roman Church. Even before his acceptance of 
Christianity from Byzantium, he had dallied with 
Rome. Here again the political character of his 
theology is apparent. Anxious for the ecclesiastical 
independence of his country, and unable to obtain a 
Bulgarian Patriarch from the Greek Church, he sent 
an embassy to Pope Nicholas I. in 866 with a most 
remarkable document. The Pope was expected to 
answer no fewer than one hundred and six questions 
upon the Christian life, some of which must have 
caused him to smile, while others touched upon the 
gravest themes. Thus, we find one question asking 
what punishment is to be meted out to idolaters, 
while another requests the Pope to decide whether 
the Bulgarians may continue to wear trousers. The 
morality of dowries, and minute points of Court 
etiquette were submitted in the same breath as the 
treatment of fugitives and the desirability of sorcery. 
The countrymen of the late M. Stambuloff might 
with advantage have remembered the old Papal 
warning that " a man, who cannot be allowed to leave 
his country, is not a free man." But to the most 
important question of all, the right of Bulgaria to an 
archbishop of her own, no definite answer was given. 
The Pope avoided the question, but promised to send 
two bishops to study the state of the country. The 
bishops came and brought Bibles with them, but it 
was not till the time of the next Pope that an arch- 



134 THE CONVERSION OF THE BULGARIANS. 

bishop was sent, and then Boris refused to receive 
him. Meanwhile the accession of the Emperor 
Basil I., who had been as a boy a Bulgarian prisoner, 
led Boris to turn once more to Constantinople. The 
famous Council of 869 decided that Bulgaria belonged 
to the Eastern and not to the Western Church, and 
the decision has never been revoked. The Roman 
clergy left the country, which was now placed under 
the spiritual care of the Archbishop Joseph and ten 
bishops, sent from Constantinople. Successive Popes 
in vain endeavoured to prevail upon Bulgaria to 
return to the Western fold. The Bulgarian Arch- 
bishop was awarded the next place to the Greek 
Patriarch on great occasions at Constantinople ; the 
closest relations began between the Bulgarians and 
the Greeks. The oscillation of Boris between the 
Eastern and the Western Churches has in our own time 
been exactly paralleled by one of his name. This 
very year another Boris of Bulgaria has been the 
unconscious object of fierce competition between the 
Greek .Church and that of Rome. Baby Boris, like 
his ancestor, has been won over to the Greek ritual. 

Boris, weary of the throne, retired in 888 to a 
monastery, hoping to pass the rest of his days in 
peace. But his eldest son Vladimir, who succeeded 
him, was so rash a ruler that he emerged from his 
cloister, and appointed his younger son Simeon to 
rule in his stead. He then returned to his cell, and 
died in 907. His name lives still in the memory of 
the Bulgarian people, and he ranks as the first of 
their national heroes. 




II. 



THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 



(893—IOI8.) 



The historian of the " Decline and Fall " has re- 
marked in a famous passage, that " the glory of the 
Bulgarians was confined to a narrow scope both of time 
and place," but he admits that in the reign of Simeon 
" Bulgaria assumed a rank among the civilised powers 
of the earth." The era of this monarch was, indeed, 
the golden age of Bulgaria. Neither before nor since 
has the Bulgarian name been so feared and so re- 
spected, and to-day the nation looks back with pride 
to the thirty-four years of Simeon's rule as the period 
when the country reached its zenith. 

The remarkable man, to whom the rise of Bulgaria 
was chiefly due, had been educated by his father's 
desire at Constantinople. The lad studied the master- 
pieces of ancient eloquence and philosophy with so 
much zeal, that his comrades called him half a Greek. 
But his acquaintance with Greek literature did not 
dispose him to look with favour upon the Greek 
Empire. His object was to found upon the ruins 



I36 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

of the Byzantine dominion a new Greco-Slav realm, 
of which he himself would be the head. 

He lost no time in setting about his plan. The 
thirty years' peace between Bulgaria and the Greeks 
now came to an end. Simeon found a convenient 
pretext for war in a commercial question, which 
shows that in those days the trade of Bulgaria was 
considerable. The Emperor Leo the Philosopher 
had granted a monopoly of the Bulgarian markets 
to two Greek merchants, who levied heavy dues 
upon all the native industries. Simeon, unable to 
obtain redress, declared war. The feeble Leo was 
taken at a disadvantage. Simeon routed his armies, 
and contemptuously restored the Greek prisoners to 
their sovereign with their noses cut off. The Emperor 
now summoned to his aid the Magyars, who had 
become near neighbours of the Bulgarians since their 
entry into the eastern part of what is now Roumania'. 
These fierce auxiliaries under their leader Arpad 
crossed the Danube, which had hitherto divided 
them from the Bulgarians, and forced Simeon to 
retire ro Silistria, while they ravaged the country as 
far as his residence at Preslav on the northern slopes 
of the Balkans. On their return march, however, the 
Bulgarian prince fell upon them and defeated them. 
In order to prevent further Magyar invasions, he took 
advantage of their absence on a Western campaign 
to carry off or butcher their wives and little ones, 
whom they had left behind. Finding their Bess- 
arabian home desolate, the Magyars wandered once 
more westward to found the kingdom of Hungary. 

Simeon by a timely victory secured peace with 



SIMEONS VICTORIES. \tf 

Leo. But upon the death of that Emperor, an 
insult to the Bulgarian envoys aroused the anger of 
their sovereign, who vowed that he would never rest 
till every Byzantine town in Europe was his. The 
Bulgarians, again appeared at the gates of Constanti- 
nople ; Adrianople fell before them. The Greeks 
attempted to divert their enemy's attention from the 
Imperial city by an expedition against his own coast. 
But a great Bulgarian victory at the mouth of the 
river Achelous near Mesembria annihilated the Greek 
forces. Simeon renewed his attack on Constanti- 
nople with a vast army, and endeavoured to obtain a 
fleet from the Arabs of Tunis. Romanus Lecapenus, 
the associate of Constantine Porphyrogenitus on the 
throne, was forced to beg for peace from the proud 
Bulgarian, who held the fortunes of the Greek Empire 
in the hollow of his hand. Simeon, fearing that the 
tribes of the north might assail him in the rear, con- 
sented to spare the Imperial capital. Riches were 
offered to the victors ; free trade — the original bone 
of contention — was granted, and the chief places at 
festivals were reserved for the Bulgarians and their 
friends. Further hostilities with the Greeks were 
prevented by the death of their dreaded foe. 

Meanwhile Simeon had extended his dominions in 
other directions. He deposed two princes of Servia, and 
drove a third to seek refuge among the Croats, while 
a Bulgarian army ravaged his country with fire and 
sword. Under Simeon's sway the Bulgarian frontier 
ran from Mesembria on the shore of the Black Sea 
past Adrianople to Mount Rhodope, and then right 
across the peninsula from Mount Olympus to the 



138 



THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 



Albanian coast opposite Corfu. Albania, with the 
exception of a few ports, was Bulgarian as far as the 
river Drin, while nearly the whole of the present 
kingdom of Servia, including the important town 
of Nisch and Belgrade itself, belonged to Simeon. 
Even across the Danube his power was felt. Before 
the Magyar invasion he seems to have included part 




THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

of Roumania in his dominions, and it is possible that 
portions of Hungary and Transylvania owned his 
sceptre. At his death he was meditating the addi- 
tion of Croatia to his possessions. Bulgaria, under 
his auspices, was — what she has never been again, but 



Simeon's magnificence. 139 

what she still aspires to be — the dominant state of 
the Balkan Peninsula. Indeed, there was little room 
left for any one else. Not even the " big Bulgaria," 
projected by the treaty of San Stefano in 1878, 
would have been so large as the Bulgaria of the first 
three decades of the tenth century. 

It was hardly to be expected that the lord of such 
a vast expanse of territory would remain content with 
the simple title of knez, or prince. Simeon sought 
the name as well as the dominions of an Emperor, 
and obtained from Rome the title which he desired. 
He styled himself " Czar of the Bulgarians and 
Autocrat of the Greeks," and his successors called 
themselves " Czars " after him. Thus, five centuries 
before there were Czars of Russia, Bulgaria had 
adopted that proud designation for her rulers. But 
without a Patriarch the Empire of a Czar was incom- 
plete. Boris had never succeeded in obtaining for 
his chief ecclesiastic any higher title than that of 
Archbishop. But his son was more fortunate, and a 
Patriarch was installed at his capital at Preslav. 

We may judge of Simeon's power, not merely from 
the extent of his Empire, but from the splendour of his 
palace. The Bulgarians had rivalled the pomp of the 
Greeks at the siege of Constantinople, and they now 
erected a capital worthy of their huge realm. Preslav, 
better known under its Turkish name of Eski-Stambul, 
is now a wretched village, but a thousand years ago its 
splendour excited universal admiration. A personal 
friend of Simeon, John the Exarch, has given an in- 
teresting description of the Bulgarian Czar's residence. 
" If a stranger coming from afar enters the outer- 



tzj-O 



THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 



court of the princely dwelling, he will be amazed, and 
ask many a question as he walks up to the gates. 
And if he goes within, he will see on either side 
buildings decorated with stone and wainscoted with 
wood of various colours. And if he goes yet further 
into the courtyard he will behold lofty palaces 
and churches, bedecked with countless stones and 
wood and frescoes without, and with marble and 
copper and silver and gold within. Such grandeur 
he has never seen before, for in his own land there 




RUINS OF PRESLAV. 

are only miserable huts of straw. Beside himself 
with astonishment, he will scarce believe his eyes. 
But if he perchance espy the prince sitting in his 
robe covered with pearls, with a chain of coins round 
his neck and bracelets on his wrists, girt about with a 
purple girdle and a sword of gold at his side, while 
on either hand his nobles are seated with golden 
chains, girdles, and bracelets upon them ; then will he 
answer when one asks him on his return home what 
he has seen : ' I know not how to describe it ; only 
thine own eyes could comprehend such splendour.' " 
In the seventeenth century there was still existing 
near Preslav a huge wall, dating from pre-Turkish 



OLD BULGARIAN LITERATURE. I4I 

times, which enclosed a larger space than the area of 
Constantinople itself. Nowadays a few fragments of 
stone alone remain to mark the spot. 

The reign of Simeon was long remembered as the 
golden age of old Bulgarian literature. The Czar, like 
several other Balkan princes, was a patron of letters, 
and dabbled in them himself. It is uncertain 
whether the Slav translation of St. Chrysostom's best 
speeches was from his pen, but it was at his instiga- 
tion that the selection was made. Before his time 
there were already the germs of a national literature. 
The oldest known specimen is the catalogue of ancient 
Bulgarian princes, referred to in the last chapter. At 
first, it seems probable that the Greek alphabet was 
used, but after the invention of the Cyrillic character 
it was discarded. The first Slavonic books were 
mainly religious works, translations of the Bible and 
ecclesiastical books executed by Constantine, Metho- 
dius, and their pupils, who were collectively known as 
the " seven saints." With the accession of Simeon, 
the bulk of the national literature increased. John 
the Exarch, from whom we have already quoted, 
wrote and dedicated to the Czar a work called 
Sestodnev, a descriptive account of the Creation, 
compiled from a variety of sources. Another priest, 
named Constantine, translated by the Czar's orders 
four orations of Athanasius — a further proof of 
Simeon's rhetorical taste — and made a collection of 
homilies for every Sunday in the year. We now 
hear for the first time of a historical work, a transla- 
tion of the chronicle of John Malalas together with 
a sketch of Old Testament history and a life of 



I42 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

Alexander the Great — the whole undertaken by a 
monk named Gregory at the express desire of 
Simeon. Philology, too, found a Bulgarian votary 
in the monk Chrabr, who composed a treatise on the 
invention of the Slavonic alphabet. An encyclo- 
paedia of contemporary learning translated from 
Greek authors was the work of this reign, and 
bears the name of " Simeon's Sbornik," but its 
authors are unknown. It will be seen that the 
literature of the period was entirely in monkish 
hands, and Simeon himself owed his literary accom- 
plishments to his training as a monk. But works of 
originality were sadly lacking ; no great Bulgarian 
poet arose to kindle the feelings of the people by his 
songs. Oral tradition had accumulated legends, 
proverbs, and fables, but there was no Bulgarian 
Homer or Virgil to weave them into a national 
epic. Simeon compared his literary associates with 
the learned men who had gathered at the court of 
the Ptolemies. His death threw a shadow over the 
culture which he had done so much to foster, just as 
it checked his conquests. He died in 927, and Peter, 
his eldest son by his second marriage, whom he had 
made his heir to the exclusion of Michael, his son by 
his first wife, reigned in his stead. 

The new Czar was a very different man from his 
father. Simeon had sought the diadem of an Em- 
peror, Peter desired the halo of a saint ; Simeon had 
led his people to the gates of Constantinople, Peter 
could scarcely defend his country from the Greeks 
Alike at home and abroad, in politics and religion, 
dissension and weakness were the characteristics of 



THE CZAR PETER. 1 43 

this long reign, with which the decline of the first 
Bulgarian Empire began. 

Peter had hardly mounted the throne when his 
neighbours prepared to take advantage of his youth 
and inexperience to attack his dominions. The 
Greeks were the first in the field, but a peace was 
arranged through the efforts of the young Czar's 
uncle and gnardian, Sursubul, and cemented by a 
marriage between Peter and the grand-daughter of 
the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus. This Byzantine 
union had an evil influence upon the future of Bul- 
garia. For the close relations between Constanti- 
nople and Bulgaria which date from the marriage of 
Peter, brought the sturdy warriors of the Balkans 
under the spell of the Byzantine Court. The Bul- 
garian Czar, who had derived his diadem from Rome, 
now drew near to Constantinople. The Greeks 
recognised the validity of his title, and allowed the 
dignity of a Patriarch to the Archbishop of Silistria. 
The Bulgarian Church thus became independent, and 
the aspirations of Boris I. were fulfilled. Moreover, 
the Greek Emperor still paid a yearly tribute to the 
Bulgarian Czar. But the party of action in the 
country was not satisfied with this Greek alliance. 
Simeon's old generals despised the enemies whom 
they had so often put to rout, and in Peter's younger 
brother John they found a leader. But John was 
defeated, and Michael, Peter's disinterested half- 
brother, fared no better. But the connection with 
the Eastern Empire was severed by the Greeks 
themselves. With the accession of the Emperor 
Nicephorus Phocas a series of energetic rulers be- 



144 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE, 

gan, and Bulgaria was not long in feeling the effects 
of the new order of things. Nicephorus, flushed with 
his conquest of Crete and Cyprus, determined to 
subdue the Bulgarians and avenge the victories of 
Simeon. The incursions of the Magyars, who five 
times ravaged Bulgaria under Peter's weak rule and 
then strayed over the border into the Byzantine 
provinces, furnished him with an excuse. He de- 
manded satisfaction from the Bulgarians, and when 
they retaliated by asking him for tribute, he beat 
their envoys and occupied their frontier. But, warned 
by the fate of his predecessors, he resolved to take no 
further steps until he had secured a powerful ally. He 
accordingly begged Sviatoslav, chief of the Russians, 
to assist him. 

The first appearance of the Russians in Bulgaria 
was a most important event, which affects Bulgarian 
politics to this hour. From that memorable day of 
August, 967, when the Russian fleet arrived with ten 
thousand men at the mouth of the Danube, we may 
trace the first interference of Russia in the affairs of 
the Southern Slavs. Sviatoslav, a hardy warrior, 
whose food was horseflesh, whose couch was a bear 
skin laid upon the ground, made short work of such 
resistance as the feeble Peter offered to his arms. 
Silistria, the great Bulgarian stronghold, fell, and so 
rapid was the progress of the Russians, that Nice- 
phorus began to fear for the safety of his own capital. 
He hastened to make peace with the Bulgarian Czar, 
and promised to drive the terrible Northmen from his 
land. A double marriage was to be a token of this 
new alliance. 



THE HERMITS. 1 45 

While Bulgaria had thus been menaced by Greeks 
and Russians, Servia, enslaved by Simeon, had re- 
gained her independence. Under the leadership of 
Ceslav she severed herself from Bulgarian domination 
and owned no superior save the Emperor at Constanti- 
nople. The Patzinakitai, a savage tribe occupying 
the southern part of Roumania, crossed the Danube 
and made repeated incursions into Bulgaria on the 
north, and to add to these external troubles, a schism 
arose at home which rent the Empire of Simeon in 
twain. Disgusted at the weakness of Peter, a Bul- 
garian noble, named Sisman, a native of Trnovo 
resolved to found a dynasty of his own. Unable to 
subject the whole country to his sway, he contented 
himself with the western half. He soon extended 
his influence in Macedonia and Albania, and from 
963 there were thus two separate Bulgarian Empires, 
one in the west, the other in the east. Sisman had 
himself proclaimed Czar, and his descendants held 
their own- for half a century after the other half 
of the Empire had fallen beneath the Byzantine 
yoke. 

The decadence of Bulgaria was as marked in the 

domain of literature and theology as in the arts of 

war. To the zealous preachers and teachers, whose 

lives and writings had illuminated the reigns of Boris 

I. and his still greater son, there succeeded a race of 

gloomy hermits, who preferred the seclusion of the 

forests to the task of instructing the people. We 

find in the fiery speeches of Kosmas, who lived a 

little later, vigorous denunciations of these monkish 

ascetics, who sacrificed useful studies to the mortifica- 

11 






I46 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

tion of their own bodies, while the nation, which they 
ought to have taught, was wholly devoted to gaming 
and drinking, the music of the guzla, and the singing 
of " devilish songs." The kind of life led by the 
spiritual leaders of that period may be judged from 
the career of the most famous of them all, John of 
Ryl, who was afterwards chosen as the patron saint 
of Bulgaria. Born in a village, of humble parents, 
he spent his youth in tending a flock of sheep. On 
his parents' death he entered a cloister ; but, desiring 
absolute solitude, soon retired to the remote but 
beautiful Ryl mountains. Here he spent twenty- 
seven solitary years, first in a dark cavern, then in the 
hollow of an old oak, and finally on an inaccessible 
crag, which now overshadows the fine monastery 
erected to his memory. Here the Czar Peter once 
visited him in his retirement, and perhaps may have 
wished that he could follow his example. But the 
lonely hermit did not lack imitators. Three other 
" dwellers in the wilderness " are mentioned in the 
history of the period, and commemorated by similar 
monastic foundations, which served during the long 
period of Turkish domination to keep alive the torch 
of Slavonic learning. 

While literature had thus fled from the land, a 
strange doctrine of theology had insinuated itself into 
the minds of the people. The heresy of the Bogo- 
miles has played a great part in the history of the 
Balkan Peninsula. In Bosnia it defied all the efforts 
of the Popes to suppress it ; it made its way into 
Italy, and even France ; but it was in Bulgaria that 
it first attained importance. During the early part of 



THE BOGOMILES. 1 47 

Peter's reign, there appeared in his country a priest 
named Bogomil, the " Beloved of God," the author of 
several mystical works, strongly imbued with Oriental 
ideas. Bogomil's teaching was peculiarly appreciated 
by a Slavonic race, such as the Bulgarians had by 
this time become. His cardinal doctrine of a good 
and an evil deity found its counterpart in the old 
Slavonic myth of good and evil spirits, called bogy 
and besy. Upon this dualism his whole system was 
based ; by means of it he built up a complete theory 
of the universe. The good deity, according to the 
Bogomiles, was the creator of what is heavenly, 
unseen, and perfect. It is to the bad deity, the 
Satan of the Scriptures, that we owe everything that 
is visible and tangible, the world and all that dwell 
therein. In Platonic language, they describe how in 
the soul of man both elements are combined, how 
everywhere exists the antithesis between mind and 
matter, between what is temporal and what is eternal. 
For all the misfortunes which befell mankind in the 
Old Testament they make the evil deity responsible 
— for the murder of Abel, the Flood, the Tower of 
Babel, the destruction of Sodom. The Virgin Mary 
was, in their view, not the mother of our Lord, but 
an angel ; the death of Christ upon the Cross was 
not a reality. For the emblems of Christianity as 
practised by the monks they had nothing but con- 
tempt. They blasphemed against the crucifix ; they 
regarded pictures and statues as idolatrous. They 
rejected the mass, set orthodox bishops at defiance, 
and called themselves "the salt of the earth," "the 
lilies of the field," and "the light of the world," 



I48 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

Adults were alone admitted into their community, 
and fasting and prayer, followed by the laying of the 
Gospel according to St. John on the head of the 
proselyte, took the place of baptism. There were 
two grades among the faithful, one of " simple 
believers," the other of " perfect " men and women. 
Any member of the latter grade might preach, and 
the elders of the Church were elected by the congre- 
gation. There was no regular service of prayer, and 
no churches were needed for the simple worship 
of the Bogomiles. Like the ancient Slavs, they 
addressed their supplications to God under the 
canopy of heaven or in their straw-thatched huts. 
A " perfect " Bogomile might not marry ; to eat meat 
was a crime, to kill any animal but a snake a deadly 
sin. This horror of bloodshed made them prohibit 
warfare and capital punishment, for these they re- 
garded as works of the evil spirit. The " perfect " 
Bogomile was, in fact, a hermit, for he was compelled 
by his creed to avoid everything that savoured of the 
world. It was easy to recognise him, as he rode 
through a village, by the prayers which he murmured 
as he went. But only a chosen few arrived at so 
high a grade of self-denial. An ordinary member of 
the sect lived externally much like other men. He 
married a wife, and could divorce her at his will ; he 
went to the wars, and engaged in commerce. But on 
his death-bed he was always received into the com- 
munity of the " perfect." Such was the Bogomile 
heresy, Its influence upon the people was very 
great : in spite, or because, of persecution, it spread 
far and wide. A mass of legends and fables sprang 



RESULTS OF THE BOGOMILE HERESY. 1 49 

from the mystical teachings of the Bogomiles, and 
this curious lore was disseminated from Bulgaria 
through Russia and the Balkan lands. But the 
political results of the heresy were even more serious. 
It added yet another to the thorny theological ques- 
tions which divided the Christians of South-eastern 
Europe against each other. Two new parties were 
thus formed, and at a later period, when nothing but 
unity could have saved the Balkan nationalities from 
the victorious march of Islam, they were separated 
and split asunder by their own religious differences. 

Boris II., who succeeded his father Peter upon the 
death of the latter in 969, found himself surrounded 
by difficulties. The Russians, under their redoubt- 
able chief, Sviatoslav, having once tasted the delights 
of a warmer climate, were not likely to remain in 
their capital of Kieff. David, son of Sisman, who 
now styled himself Czar of West Bulgaria, seized the 
opportunity of Boris's absence in Constantinople to 
attack the eastern half of the country. With a 
promptitude worthy of Simeon, Boris hurried back 
and repulsed the usurper David. But the threatened 
Russian invasion was much more serious. This time 
Sviatoslav came with the intention of staying. He 
told his mother Olga that he had resolved to move 
his throne from Kieff to Preslavec, on the Danube, 
where he had pitched his winter quarters on his 
former expedition. The site of Preslavec, which 
must not be confounded with Simeon's capital of 
Preslav on the northern slopes of the Balkans, is 
now lost ; but it must have seemed to the hardy 
Northmen a veritable paradise. Sviatoslav de- 



150 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

scribed to his mother the advantages of its situa- 
tion. "At Preslavec," he said, "the riches of the 
whole world are to be found. Thither Greece sends 
her silk, her wines, and her fruits ; Bohemia and 
Hungary their steeds ; Russia her furs and her wax, 
her honey and her slaves." Preslavec, as well as 
Preslav, fell before the lances of the Russians, Boris 
himself was captured by the invaders ; a Russian 
army for the first time crossed the Balkans, and, after 
a desperate struggle for Philippopolis, appeared on 
the Greek frontier and threatened Constantinople. 
But the warlike Armenian, John Zimisces, who had 
just succeeded to the Byzantine throne, came to the 
assistance of the Bulgarian Czar. Traversing the 
Balkans, he suddenly appeared before Preslav, where 
Sviatoslav's trusty lieutenant had been left in charge 
of the booty and the Bulgarian monarch. The skill 
of the Greeks in sieges soon told. After a desperate 
assault, the city was captured, but the palace of the 
Bulgarian Czars perished in the flames. Boris and 
his family were rescued, and the handful of Russians 
who escaped retreated to Silistria. With the fall of 
that last refuge, peace was concluded. Sviatoslav 
renounced all hostile designs upon Bulgaria, and was 
allowed to go free. But near the rapids of the 
Dnieper he was attacked by the fierce tribe of Pat- 
zinakitai ; his head was cut off and converted into a 
goblet, in accordance with that savage custom of 
which Bulgarian history has already furnished us 
with one notable example. 

Bulgaria had been freed from the Russians, but she 
found that she had merely exchanged one servitude 



ACCESSION OF SAMUEL. I 5 I 

for another. The crafty Armenian had not released 
Boris from pure compassion for his fate, and the 
kindness with which the rescued Czar was treated 
was merely the prelude to his final deposition. It 
had long been the desire of the Byzantine Emperors 
to add Bulgaria to their dominions, and chance had 
at last given them an opportunity of accomplishing 
it. Master as he was of the country, Zimisces de- 
stroyed the Empire of Simeon without a blow. Boris 
II. and the Patriarch Damian were deposed, the 
diadem of the Bulgarian Czars was offered up as a 
trophy in the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, 
the fallen sovereign was stripped of his purple mantle 
and his scarlet shoes, while he received in return for 
the loss of his dominions the sorry dignity of an 
Imperial magnate. To make the downfall of his 
dynasty doubly sure, his younger brother, sole sur- 
vivor of Omortag's line, was emasculated by order of 
the conqueror. Thus, in 971, three centuries after 
Isperich had led his Bulgarians across the Danube, 
the Empire of Simeon ingloriously fell. Only in the 
western portion of the country — in Macedonia and 
Albania — the new dynasty, which Sisman had 
founded, still survived to maintain the name and 
fame of the Bulgarian Czars. Five years after the 
fall of the East Bulgarian throne, a man arose in the 
West whose exploits threw a final lustre upon the 
last years of the First Bulgarian Empire. This man 
was Stephen Samuel, fourth son of Sisman, who has 
left a great mark upon the history of his country. 

The circumstances under which Samuel received 
the crown are somewhat obscure. His eldest brother, 



1^2 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

David, is known. to have been murdered by a band 
of wandering Wallachs in the mountains. Moses, 
the second brother, fell in battle. Aaron, the third of 
the family, was put to death by Samuel's orders 
because of his sympathies with the Greeks. A story 
was long current to the effect that Samuel had put 
his father's eyes out and then strangled him, in order 
to secure the throne. But this is probably an inven- 
tion. Samuel was a cruel ruler, but it is not neces- 
sary to accuse him of parricide. The fact is certain 
that in 976 he became Czar, and for nearly forty 
years the fortunes of Bulgaria were in his hands. 

The empire to which Samuel succeeded was Mace- 
donian rather than Bulgarian. At first, indeed, he 
fixed his residence at Sofia, the present capital ; but 
he soon moved to Macedonia, and established him- 
self in a rocky and beautifully-wooded island in the 
lovely lake of Prespa. The travellers who have seen 
the place have still been able to trace the ruins of his 
castle, or Grad, from which the island derives its 
present name. Amid the clusters of the vine and 
the fierf glow of the pomegranate, the columns of 
four churches still rise in silent grandeur ; while a 
second island, called Mali Grad, or " the little castle," 
testifies alike by its title and the carved stones upon 
it to the past glories of the Bulgarian Czar. Yet 
nearer the Adriatic did Samuel penetrate, for above 
the lake of Ochrida two ruined fortresses still remind 
the natives of their ancient lord. Further westward 
the Albanian town of Berat owned his sway, while in 
the south Joannina, the present Albanian capital, 
and the coast opposite Corfu were parts of his empire. 




THE DIKILITAS AT JALAR. 



154 T HE F 'RST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

In the north his dominions included Nisch and Bel- 
grade ; in the east he held most of the towns on the 
Struma and the Vardar, and thus connected Mace- 
donia with Sofia and the east of Bulgaria. Opposed 
as he was to the Emperor at Constantinople, he 
naturally looked to Rome for his crown, like Simeon 
and Peter ; but he was statesman enough to see that 
it was only by a strict neutrality in the theological 
disputes of his subjects that he could keep it. The 
parties of the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox Greek 
Church, and the Bogomiles were so evenly divided in 
his domains, that no other course was open to him. 

The confusion, which followed the death of the 
Emperor Zimisces, induced the people of Eastern 
Bulgaria to revolt against their Byzantine masters. 
In Samuel they found a leader, and in a short time 
all the Bulgarian towns on the Danube opened their 
gates to him. Meanwhile the captive Czar, Boris II., 
and his brother had escaped from Constantinople. 
But the unhappy Boris, on his way home, was killed 
by one of his former subjects, who imagined from his 
garb that he was a Greek. His brother escaped to 
Samuel's court, where he was received with favour 
and entrusted with an important post. Having 
Bulgaria at his feet the Czar marched southwards 
into Thessaly, then inhabited by a considerable 
Slavonic population, and by the capture of Larissa 
provided himself with a Greek wife. 

But in Basil II., the new Emperor, the Bulgarian 
Czar found a foeman worthy of his steel. From his 
early years this heartless ascetic seemed to have but 
one desire, the complete subjugation of the Bulgarian 



BASIL THE " DULGAR-SLAYER." \$$ 

race. It took him forty years to accomplish his task, 
but at last he succeeded, and is now chiefly known 
by the epithet of the " Bulgar-slayer," which his 
cruelties and his victories won him. His first 
campaign against Samuel in 981 was a complete 
failure, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he 
escaped with his life. Warlike operations elsewhere 
prevented the Emperor from renewing his attack for 
fifteen years, and in the meanwhile Samuel extended 
his sway in all directions. The Czar occupied Durazzo 
and the Adriatic seaboard as far north as Ragusa, and 
attacked John Vladimir, the Serb ruler of the district 
known as the Zeta, which was the germ of the present 
principality of Montenegro. Vladimir retreated into 
those inaccessible mountain fastnesses which no 
enemy has ever been able to capture, and received as 
a token- of the conqueror's esteem the hand of his 
daughter and North Albania as his vassal. This was 
the zenith of Samuel's rule ; from that moment his 
power began to decline. In his second war against 
Basil he sustained his first crushing defeat. On his 
way back from a campaign in the Morea he was 
attacked by night on the banks of the river Hellada 
not far from the famous pass of Thermopylae. A 
terrible slaughter ensued, and Samuel fled for refuge 
to his rocky island home in Lake Prespa. From that 
moment his fortune turned. Durazzo was lost to 
him, and the loss was all the more bitter because his 
own daughter helped her Armenian husband to 
betray the place. East Bulgaria, with the old capital 
of Preslav, acknowledged once more the Byzantine 
sway ; Vidin surrendered after an eight months' siege. 



156 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

Basil marched through the land destroying fortress 
after fortress as he went. The four campaigns of this 
second Bulgarian and Byzantine war left Samuel 
nothing but West Macedonia, Albania, and the 
mountainous districts of Vitos and Ryl. Fresh 
distractions in Asia alone prevented Basil from 
giving the final blow to the First Bulgarian Empire. 
A third war, which broke out in 1014, was even more 
disastrous for the Czar. Fifteen thousand of his 
subjects were taken prisoners in a great battle near 
Belasica, a mountain in Macedonia, which looms 
large in Bulgarian ballads. With a refinement of 
cruelty unparalleled even in the annals of that bar- 
barous age, Basil had their eyes put out, allowing 
every hundredth man to retain one eye, in order 
that he might be able to guide his comrades to the 
headquarters of their sovereign. In spite of his own 
fierce disposition and deeds of bloodshed, Samuel 
was overpowered at the spectacle as a long line of 
blind warriors entered the gates of his camp. He 
fell to the ground in a swoon ; for a moment he 
seemed to recover, but his heart was broken, and he 
died ten days later on September 15, 1014. With 
him perished the last hope of Bulgaria. It was his 
strong arm and resolute will which had so long kept 
the Greek Emperor at bay, and though his son 
Gabriel Roman or Radomir, who succeeded him, had 
the courage and more than the stature of his father, 
he could not stay the downfall of his country. An 
evil fate seemed to dog the House of Sisman ; the 
blood which Samuel had shed was upon the head of 
his son. For a time the Czar Gabriel, who had stood 



FALL OF BULGARIA. 1$? 

at his father's right hand in many a battle, made a 
stand against the inveterate enemy of his race. 
Basil, flushed with his success, refused all offers of 
peace, and pressed on into Macedonia. But the 
Bulgarians, fired by Gabriel's example, disputed every 
position with the Greeks, and Basil had to resort to 
treachery to accomplish his ends. Samuel's murdered 
brother Aaron had left a son, John Vladislav, who 
was as devoted as his father before him to the Greek 
cause. Forgetful of the fact that his own life had 
been spared by Samuel at the request of his cousin 
Gabriel, Vladislav assassinated the Czar at the in- 
stigation of the Greek Emperor. Not content with 
one victim, Vladislav gave orders for the murder of 
Gabriel's wife, blinded her eldest boy, and slew 
Vladimir prince of the Zeta who had married 
Gabriel's daughter. Thus was Samuel's fratricide 
avenged fivefold. 

Vladislav was unable to reap the fruits of his 
treachery by handing over Bulgaria to the Greeks. 
The Bulgarian boljars or nobles, who had always 
been the mainstay of the Czars, forced him to con- 
tinue the struggle for national independence. Under 
the patriotic Ivac the aristocracy showed that the 
spirit of Simeon and Samuel was not dead. Basil's 
career of plunder and cruelty was momentarily 
stopped, and Vladislav himself seems to have 
changed his mind and done his best for his country. 
But he fell before the walls of Durazzo in 1018, 
Bulgaria was left without a Czar, and the nobles 
themselves became convinced that further resistance 
was useless. A few, however, still held out ; the 



158 THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

majority surrendered to the Greek Emperor. Basil 
marched in triumphal progress to Ochrida, where the 
widow of Vladislav and the survivors of the House 
of Sisman received him in the former residence of 
Samuel. An immense treasure and the crown of the 
dead Czar fell into the victor's hands, and it did not 
cost him much to confirm the privileges of the Bul- 
garian nobles, and confer a few Byzantine titles upon 
their chiefs. The mountains of Albania still sheltered 
the dauntless few, among them three sons of Vladi- 
slav. But Ivac, who had been the soul of the struggle 
for freedom, was cunningly entrapped and blinded. 
Deprived of their leader, the remaining boljars yielded, 
and in 1018, after forty years of stratagems and 
battles, Basil the " Bulgar-slayer " realised the dream 
of his youth. Bulgaria, West as well as East, the 
Empire of Samuel no less than the Empire of Boris, 
was a dependency of Constantinople. The Serbs 
and Croats were dragged down in its fall, and the 
Balkan Peninsula obeyed the commands of a Byzan- 
tine Emperor. 




III. 



BULGARIA UNDER THE GREEKS. 



(1018— 1 1 86.) 



THE period of one hundred and seventy years 
which intervened between the First and Second 
Bulgarian Empires is almost a blank in the national 
history. The Greek supremacy stifled the patriotic 
feelings of the people. The country had been devas- 
tated by the long struggle between Samuel and Basil, 
thousands of its inhabitants had fallen in war, many 
had migrated to Asia. The nobles, the natural 
leaders of the masses in an aristocratic state such as 
Bulgaria, were occupying subordinate positions at 
the court of the conqueror ; even Samuel's daughter 
was a lady-in-waiting to some Imperial Highness at 
Constantinople. Bulgaria, though its ancient bound- 
aries were nominally preserved, was for all practical 
purposes an integral part of the Greek Empire. The 
Emperor announced, indeed, in one of his proclama- 
tions that, although he had conquered the country, he 
intended to maintain its rights. But he divided the 

dominions of the Czars into theiuata, or provinces, 

159 



l6o BULGARIA UNDER THE GREEKS. 

like the rest of the Empire, each under the control 
of a strategos or governor, who combined in his 
person both military and civil powers and usually 
held office for little more than a year. During this 
time his chief object was to make as much out of 
the unfortunate provincials as he could, and scarcely 
had one official been satiated than another hungry 
placeman appeared in his stead. From the testimony 
of Greek writers themselves we learn that their 
countrymen behaved like " robbers " to the helpless 
Bulgarians entrusted to their care. Above the 
strategi, who resided in the chief towns such as 
Ochrida, Prespa, and Durazzo, there was a Governor- 
general whose seat was at Skopje in Macedonia. 
Beneath them there were two inferior grades of 
military officers, so that there was a complete hier- 
archy of Imperial functionaries. In fact, under the 
Greek rule the Bulgarians had a foretaste of the 
coming Turkish domination. The men were different, 
the methods very much the same. 

One national institution was allowed to retain 
much of* its former independence. The Bulgarian 
Church had always been closely connected with the 
life of the people. Basil spared the religious suscepti- 
bilities of the conquered nation from political motives. 
He permitted the Bulgarian ecclesiastics to govern 
themselves without interference ; but he substituted 
the title of Archbishop for that of Patriarch ; and 
after the first appointment took care that the occu- 
pant of the post should be a Greek. Ochrida, the 
seat of the Archbishop, thus became the centre of 
Greek influence in Bulgarian lands. Nominated by 



THE CHURCH. l6l 

the Emperor at Constantinople the head of the 
the Church was his willing tool, and the former 
residence of the Czars was converted into the head- 
quarters of Greek culture. But the Bogomile heresy- 
continued to make headway, and the hair-splitting 
of Greek theologians rather increased than hindered 
the growth of the schism. The Emperor Alexius I. 
persecuted the heretics with fire and sword, with the 
result that they threw themselves into the arms of 
his barbarous enemies, preferring a pagan ally to a 
Christian foe. The territorial jurisdiction of the 
Church was, however, the same as under the old 
Bulgarian Czars. The " golden bulls " of the 
Emperor Basil enumerated no fewer than thirty 
bishoprics of the Bulgarian community with six 
hundred and eighty-five priests in their respective 
dioceses, which included all Macedonia, parts of 
Albania and Thessaly, Sofia, Vidin, Prisrend, and 
even Belgrade, between them. In short, the network 
of the Bulgarian hierarchy was, even under the Greek 
Emperors, fully as widespread as the temporal 
dominion of Simeon or Samuel had been. The 
National Church was practically free, but it was a 
free Church in an enslaved state. 

The anarchy which ensued all over the Byzantine 
Empire on the death of Basil II., was favourable to 
the Bulgarian cause. Vladislav's widow and son 
were suspected of intriguing against their masters, 
and the latter was deprived of his sight. Peter 
Deljan, a son of the hapless Czar Gabriel, appeared 
in 1040 in his father's country and was received with 
acclamations as its ruler. The natives, ground down 

12 



1 62 BULGARIA UNDER THE GREEKS. 

by the exactions of the Greek governors, flocked to 
his standard, and town after town welcomed him as 
a deliverer. But a rival Czar was proclaimed, and, as 
Deljan said, the land could not support two monarchs. 
He therefore offered to withdraw if the people wished 
it. " We will have no Czar but Deljan," was the 
enthusiastic reply. His rival was stoned, and for a 
time fortune favoured the arms of the united Bulgar- 
ians. The Byzantine tax-gatherers were hewn in 
pieces, the Emperor himself was forced to flee, his 
treasure fell into the hands of the enemy, and 
Salonica was only saved by a miracle. It seemed 
for a moment as if the Bulgarian Empire had been 
restored. But a fresh quarrel divided the Bulgarian 
ranks. Vladislav's younger brother had sought 
refuge with his cousin at the outbreak of the rebel- 
lion, and shared with him the glory of the campaign. 
With the hereditary treachery of his race he invited 
Deljan to his table, and blinded his guest when the 
latter was in his cups. Fate seemed to dog the steps 
of Sisman's House, and the crime of Samuel who had 
slain his brother was literally being visited upon the 
third and fourth generation. The traitor was richly 
rewarded by the Greek Emperor, and Bulgaria, once 
more without a leader, succumbed to the oppressor. 
Only in the impregnable fastnesses of Montenegro 
did Voislav, a prince connected by marriage with 
Samuel's line, defy the armies of the invaders, whose 
bones bleached on the cold grey limestone rocks. But 
the Bulgarians were still not without hopes of freedom. 
They were ready to follow the lead of any one who 
shared their religious views. Thus we find them 



NATIVE R I SIX GS. 1 63 

offering the title of Czar to the grandson of the 
redoubtable Voislav, Constantine Bodin in 1073, on 
condition that he would free them from the Greeks. 
Bodin consented, was proclaimed Czar under the 
name of Peter, but speedily collapsed. The only 
result of this abortive rising was the destruction of 
the palace of the Czars upon the lake of Prespa by 
mercenaries. Thus perished the most interesting 
monument of the old Bulgarian Empire. When, 
however, Robert Guiscard and his Normans landed 
in Albania and occupied a large part of Macedonia, 
the orthodox Bulgarians refused to make common 
cause with the " heretics." But the Bogomiles did 
not scruple to form military and even matrimonial 
alliances with barbarous chiefs who would assist 
them against their Greek persecutors. 

For these native insurrections were not the only 
disturbances during the Greek occupation. Two 
fierce tribes from beyond the Danube made repeated 
incursions into Bulgaria, which the successors of 
Basil II. were too weak to prevent. The Patzinakitai 
were crushed by the Greek commanders, but the 
conquerors committed the blunder of allowing their 
barbarous prisoners to settle on the plains round 
Sofia and Nisch. To the unfortunate Bulgarian 
peasantry the new colonists were most unwelcome 
neighbours, for they invited their kinsmen from over 
the river to join them in plundering the natives. 
The Kumani, a wild gipsy race, speaking a language 
somewhat resembling Turkish, appeared in Bulgaria 
for the first time about the middle of the eleventh 
century. United with the Patzinakitai, they proved 



164 BULGARIA UNDER THE GREEKS. 

invincible ; but at last their allies were utterly routed, 
and henceforth disappear from the Balkan Peninsula. 
Another people, perhaps the oldest in the Balkans, is 
now first mentioned in history. The Albanians, or 
Skipetar, as they prefer to call themselves, are still a 
riddle to philologists. Their language is almost un- 
intelligible ; their country is to this day less known 
than many parts of Central Africa. Their utter dis- 
regard of human life and complacent indifference to 
their present Ottoman masters make any study of 
their customs well-nigh impossible. The blood feud 
and constant border warfare permit few of them to 
die a natural death. Their obedience to their own 
chiefs and their natural aptitude for fighting — none 
of them ever stirs abroad without his belt of cart- 
ridges and his weapons — might have formed the 
basis of an Albanian Empire. But they have no 
national history ; even their great hero, Skanderbeg, 
was not an Albanian by birth. Their literature 
consists mainly of terse proverbs, which show them 
to be shrewd observers, and in Montenegro they have 
become, under a firm government, industrious citizens. 
In their own country they exhibit a lawlessness which 
makes them the Kurds of Europe. 

The last sixty years of the Greek rule in Bulgaria 
were comparatively undisturbed. The barbarian 
inroads had almost ceased, the natives had sunk into 
despair. But in 1 1 86 an event occurred which roused 
them to fury and led to the final overthrow of the 
Greek supremacy. There were living about that 
time in Trnovo two brothers, Peter and John Asen, 
who traced their descent from the Imperial race of 



A COSTLY SLAP ON THE CHEEK. 



165 



Sisman. Anxious to push their fortunes or seeking 
a pretext for revolt, the brothers betook themselves 
to the Greek headquarters and asked for commissions 
in the army and a grant of lands on the Balkans. 
Their petitions were refused, and John Asen received 
for his importunity a slap on the cheek from the 
highest official of the Court. The affront was never 
forgiven. Asen was a fiery adventurer, of the stuff 




OLD RELIEF AT VARXA. 



of which revolutionary leaders are made. Eager for 
revenge, he hastened home to Trnovo, and there the 
two brothers called a public meeting in the Church 
of St. Demetrius, which they had founded. They 
had no difficulty in working upon the feelings of the 
people. The Greek Emperor, Isaac Angelus, in 
order to defray the cost of his nuptials with the 
daughter of the Hungarian king, had extorted the 



1 66 BULGARIA UNDER THE^ GREER'S. 

last farthing from his Bulgarian subjects, whose 
flocks and herds had been seized by his rapacious 
officials. To this material injury was added the 
popular belief that the day; appointed by God Him- 
self for the restoration of their ancient freedom, had 
arrived. The holy Demetrius, it was said, had 
abandoned his desolate church at Salonica and come 
to the birthplace of Sisman to succour his faithful 
Bulgarians. Nobles and peasants flew to arms. All 
that was wanted was a leader, and John Asen was at 
once recognised as the man. He was at once crowned 
" Czar of the Bulgarians and Greeks," and a new 
archbishop was appointed, who did not derive his 
title from Constantinople. After the lapse of one 
hundred and sixty-eight years Bulgaria was once 
again an independent state. 



IV. 



THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 



(1 186-I398.) 



THE Bulgarian Empire was not re-established with- 
out a struggle. The Greeks lost no time in sending 
an army against the insurgents, and the temporary 
success which they gained led them to believe that 
the movement was no more serious than those of 
Deljan and Bodin. But the assistance of the great 
Servian Prince Nemanja, the Wallachs and the war- 
like Kumani, and still more the dissensions of his 
enemies enabled John Asen to hold his own. The 
Byzantine system was rotten to the core. Com- 
manders, instead of attacking the foe, intrigued for 
the crown; the Byzantine armies, largely composed 
of mercenaries and aliens, were devoid of patriotism 
when their pay was in arrear ; the masses had lost 
their faith in the Church ; the Church had lost touch 
with the world. Upon the throne of the Caesars sat 
a luxurious and indolent monarch, who proved him- 
self such a contemptible opponent that the Bulgarians 
sarcastically wished him a long life and reign. Asen 

!$7 



168 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

scornfully told his countrymen that all the Greeks 
were of the same character as their effeminate ruler. 
" Behold my lance," he cried, " and the long streamers 
that float in the wind. They differ only in colour ; 
they are formed of the same silk and fashioned by 
the same workman ; nor has the stripe, that is stained 
in purple, any superior price or value above its 
fellows." Bulgaria, from the Danube to the Balkans, 
was soon freed from the Greeks, and a guerilla war- 
fare began in Thrace. At this style of combat the 
Bulgarians greatly excelled. When the Greeks 
advanced, they retired ; when the Greeks retired, they 
advanced. At one moment, the capture of Asen's 
wife in an ambush placed them at a disadvantage, 
but they more than made up for this by an over- 
whelming defeat of the Byzantine army in a narrow 
defile, where, heedless of his predecessor's experiences, 
the Emperor Isaac had foolishly ventured. The 
Bulgarians, in the language of a Greek historian who 
took part in these campaigns, "ran like stags or goats" 
upon the steep crags, whence they hurled huge 
blocks of rock and fired showers of arrows upon 
their helpless foes. Isaac's army was annihilated, 
and the Emperor with difficulty escaped alive. The 
Bulgarians now grew bolder. They abandoned their 
guerilla warfare, and laid siege to fortified towns. 
Varna, Nisch, and Sofia fell before them, and Asen 
rescued and carried off from the present to the old 
Bulgarian capital the relics of St. John of Ryl, the 
patron saint of his country. We find him even 
promising to assist the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 
who was then engaged upon th' third crusade, pro- 



DEATH OF A SEN. l6g 

vided that he would confer the diadem of the Greek 
Empire upon the Bulgarian Czars, and recognise 
their present title. But nothing came of this daring 
proposition. Alexius III., the feeble successor of 
Isaac on the Byzantine throne, made overtures of 
peace to Asen, who indignantly refused them, and 
the latter might have rivalled the exploits of Simeon, 
and appeared before the gates of the Imperial capital, 
had he not fallen a victim, in the midst of his career 
of conquest, to the sword of an assassin. Among his 
trusty comrades was a noble Bulgarian named Ivanko, 
a man of giant stature and fierce passions. The Czar 
suspected him of an intrigue with the Czarina's sister, 
and summoned him to his presence to explain his con- 
duct. Ivanko came with his sword concealed beneath 
his clothes, and, when Asen, mad with fury, rose to 
smite him, he drew the weapon and plunged it into his 
sovereign's heart. Thus perished in 1196, after barely 
ten years of power, the energetic founder of the 
Second Bulgarian Empire. The name of Asen is 
still honoured by the people ; distinguished men love 
to call their sons after him, and, though much of his 
career is obscure and his work has perished, the 
memory of his race is cherished in Bulgaria. 

Ivanko, although he had slain the Czar, was unable 
to seize the diadem. Asen's second brother, Peter, 
who had already governed a part of the country, at 
once made himself master of Trnovo, and associated 
his younger brother, Kalojan or Johannitz, with him 
in the throne. But Peter's mild and peaceful dis- 
position displeased the warlike Bulgarians. Like his 
eldest brother, he, too, fell by the hand of an assassin, 



iyo THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

and in 1197 Kalojan reigned alone. From his earliest 
days he had imbibed an intense hatred of the Greeks. 
Sent as a hostage to Constantinople during the war, 
he had learned to despise the effeminate Byzantines, 
who in their turn .nicknamed him Skylojoannes, or 
" Dog-John." Cruel and ferocious in character, he 
resembled his eldest brother Asen, and his victories 
completed what Asen had begun. Connected by ties 
alike of policy and of blood with the Kumani — for 
his wife was one of that savage race — he speedily 
became such a terror to the Greeks that they made 
peace with him, and formally gave up the territory 
which he had captured. At the close of the twelfth 
century, the newly-established Second Empire of 
Bulgaria accordingly included a wide extent of 
country. Belgrade, Nisch, and all the present king- 
doms of Servia east of the Morava were Bulgarian, 
and the Czar's dominions stretched from the mouth 
of the Danube to the Struma and the Vardar. In 
Macedonia, too, a Bulgarian noble, named Strez, 
established himself as an independent prince upon a 
towering rock, where he held his own " like a spider 
or a scorpion," for many years against all comers. 

Kalojan had now the substance of Imperial power ; 
but, like other Bulgarian rulers, he wanted recognition 
of his title. Following the example of the old Czars, 
who turned to Rome when baffled at Constantinople, 
he sent repeated embassies to the Pope, which were, 
however, intercepted by his enemies on the way. At 
last there arrived at Trnovo in 1199 a Greek priest 
as an emissary from Innocent III. with a Papal letter 
in his hand. The Pope made flattering allusion to 



KALOIA'N AND THE POPE. 



171 



the reputed origin of the Bulgarian monarch from a 
Roman stock, and called upon him to show his 
devotion to the Holy See by deeds as well as words. 
Kalojan acknowledged the compliment and replied 
in a grandiloquent Latin epistle, in which he described 
himself as "Emperor of the Bulgarians and Wallachs." 
He begged the Pope to receive him into the Catholic 
faith, and besought an Imperial crown at his hands. 
But he soon found that Innocent wanted something 
more than empty phrases. Political considerations 
made it imperative to obtain Papal recognition with- 




COIN OF ASEN. 



out further delay. Accordingly, he signed a Golden 
Bull, in which he acknowledged the supremacy of the 
Papacy for himself and his heirs for ever. The Pope 
then despatched a Cardinal to Trnovo with a royal, 
not an Imperial, crown, for in Papal documents of 
the period we always find the title of king, not that 
of emperor, bestowed upon the Bulgarian monarch. 
On the 8th of November, 1204, Kalojan was crowned 
by the Cardinal with great ceremony, and received at 
his hands a sceptre and a banner with the picture of 
St. Peter emblazoned upon it. Permission was also 
accorded him to issue coins bearing his own image 
and superscription. On the previous day the Papal 
envoy had consecrated a Bulgarian primate, two 



I72 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

metropolitans and four bishops. Kalojan still con- 
tinued to style himself Czar and the primate called 
himself Patriarch. He had, in fact, obtained the best 
of the bargain. Orthodox writers have censured him 
severely for his " alliance " with Rome, and have 
stigmatised him as an apostate from the faith of his 
fathers. But his object, like that of Boris I., in ac- 
cepting Christianity was political ; and the union 
with Rome had little or no effect upon the ritual or 
dogma of the Bulgarian Church. 

The celebrated phrase, in which Kalojan had dubbed 
himself " Emperor of the Bulgarians and Wallachs," 
has led some writers to suppose that he was lord of 
a part of Roumania as well as of Bulgaria. It is not, 
however, necessary to infer from his words that he 
ruled over a " Wallacho-Bulgarian Empire." The 
Wallachs, whose emperor he claimed to be, were to 
be found scattered over Bulgaria, while in Wallachia 
proper the Kumani were then settled. Nor is there 
any evidence for the assertion that Kalojan and his 
brothers were of Roumanian or Wallachian descent. 
The Papal compliment is the only authority for the 
statement, and the title of " Emperor of the Bulgarians 
and Wallachs " never once occurs in Slavonic docu- 
ments. 

Kalojan had been frightened into seeking the 
patronage of the Pope by an event which had much 
influence upon the history of the Balkan Peninsula — 
the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders under 
the blind Doge Dandolo and the election of Count 
Baldwin of Flanders to the Imperial throne. Kalojan, 
like Asen, had sought an alliance and a crown from 



FATE OF BALDWIN. 1 73 

the Franks and offered to assist them with an army 
in their crusade. But Baldwin contemptuously told 
him that he regarded the Bulgarian ruler as a slave, 
whose possessions were legally part of the Byzantine 
Empire. The haughty Frank lived to repent his 
taunt. The Greeks, in their hatred of their new 
masters, turned to Kalojan for aid. A great battle 
took place near Adrianople on the 15th of April, 
1205, between the Czar, assisted by his Greek allies, 
and a savage contingent of Kumani on the one side, 
and the Franks on the other. Kalojan gained an 
overwhelming victory, and Baldwin fell into his 
hands. The fate of the Frank Emperor is one of 
those historical mysteries which research has failed 
to solve. It is known that he was imprisoned, and 
a ruined castle on the ramparts of Trnovo retains the 
name of " Baldwin's Tower " to this day. According 
to one version, Kalojan is said to have treated his 
prisoner with kindness, though he refused to release 
him even at the request of the Pope. According to 
another, he cut off his hands and feet and then had 
him thrown into a ditch to die ; while a third account 
ascribes his end to the injured feelings of Kalojan's 
Kumanian wife, who had in vain endeavoured to 
attract the comely Frank. Twenty years later, a 
false Baldwin appeared in a forest of Flanders ; but, 
though he found a large following, there can be no 
doubt that the real Emperor had long ere that 
perished. Kalojan himself met with a violent death. 
The overthrow of Baldwin had dissolved the alliance 
of the Greeks and Bulgarians, and the Czar slaughtered 
the hereditary enemies of his country wherever he 



174 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

found them, boasting that, as Basil had been called 
the " Bulgar-slayer," he would be remembered as the 
" slayer of the Greeks." For a time he carried all 
before him. Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, who 
had been made king of Macedonia, fell in a Bulgarian 
ambuscade, and his head was brought to his barbarous 
conqueror. But Kalojan's cruel spouse was his worst 
foe. At her suggestion, one of his Rumanian generals 
stabbed him with a lance as he slept in his tent before 
Salonica. The Czar died of the wound, but not 
before he had accused his murderer of the crime. 
The assassin declared that it was not himself but his 
double who had appeared to the victim in the night. 
The legend soon spread that it was none other than 
St. Demetrius, the patron-saint of Salonica, who had 
dealt the blow. 

Upon the death of Kalojan in 1207 his throne was 
seized by his nephew Boril, while the rightful heir, 
John Asen, son of the founder of the Second Empire, 
was forced to flee to Russia. Boril has been described 
by his contemporary, King Stephen of Servia, as a 
man " whose soul found a sweet pleasure in shedding 
the blood of his countrymen," and all that we know 
of his career bears out the statement of the royal 
biographer. Either from natural ferocity or theo- 
logical zeal, he persecuted the Bogomiles, although 
they had always been on the side of Bulgarian free- 
dom. No previous Czar had established a tribunal of 
priests and nobles for the trial of heretics ; yet it is 
by this synod and the marriage of his daughter with 
the Frank Emperor Henry, that his name is chiefly 
remembered. Together with this new ally he undertook 



JOHN A SEN II. 175 

a fruitless campaign against the growing power of 
Servia, but neither at home nor abroad was his leader- 
ship successful. Powerful nobles began to declare 
themselves independent, and the restored Bulgarian 
Empire might have crumbled to pieces had not young 
John Asen driven him from the throne. With the 
accession of that monarch in 1218 the glories of Bul- 
garia were revived. Just as the first Bulgarian 
Empire reached its zenith under Simeon, so the 
second culminated under John Asen II. 

Of all the Bulgarian Czars John Asen II. is the 
pleasantest figure. A great ruler in the best sense of 
the word, he has left behind him a name undefiled by 
the barbarities of which so many of his most powerful 
predecessors were guilty. A contemporary wrote of 
him that he had " neither drawn his sword against his 
own countrymen, nor disgraced himself by the murder 
of Greeks. So not only the Bulgarians, but Greeks 
and other nations loved him." He seldom engaged 
in war, and the generation during which he sat on the 
throne witnessed a great development of trade, the 
independence of the Church, and the erection of fine 
and costly buildings. Under him Bulgaria, as the 
first state of the Balkan Peninsula, was one of the 
great Powers of Europe, and he nearly accomplished 
the dream of his race, and united the crown of the 
Caesars to that of the Czars. 

His Empire reached the Black Sea, the /Egean, and 
the Adriatic. Bulgaria proper, a part of Servia, in- 
cluding Belgrade, all Macedonia, all Albania as far as 
Durazzo, obeyed his commands. He routed and cap- 
tured Theodore, the despot of Epirus, and reduced. 



I76 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

Constantinople to such extremities that the young 
Emperor Baldwin II. went as far as England in quest 
of help. There was even talk of appointing him 
Regent of the Byzantine Empire, which needed a 
firmer hand than that of its Latin sovereign. John 
Asen was willing to accept the task, and a marriage 
was arranged between Baldwin and his daughter. 
But the jealousy which then, as in our own time, Bul- 
garia has inspired among other nationalities, pre- 
vented the realisation of the project. His efforts to 




THE BULGARIAN ARMS. 

secure the support of the Pope for his candidature 
were equally fruitless. But we will let Asen speak 
for himself. An inscription on a pillar in the church 
of the Forty Martyrs at Trnovo, gives, in his own 
words, the brief chronicle of his conquests. "In the 
year 1230, I, John Asen, Czar and Autocrat of the 
Bulgarians, obedient to God in Christ, son of the old 
Asen, have built this most worthy church from its 
foundations, and completely decked it with paintings 
in honour of the Forty holy Martyrs, by whose help, 
in the 12th year of my reign, when the Church had 
just been painted, I set out to Romania to the war 
and smote the Greek army and took captive the 
Czar Theodore Komnenus with all his nobles. And 
all lands have I conquered from Adrianople to Du- 



GROWTH OF TRADE. IJJ 

razzo, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Servian land. 
Only the towns round Constantinople and that city 
itself did the Franks hold ; but these too bowed them- 
selves beneath the hand of my sovereignty, for they 
had no other Czar but me, and prolonged their days 
according to my will, as God had so ordained. For 
without him no word or work is accomplished. To 
him be honour for ever. Amen." 

His comparatively peaceful reign was very bene- 
ficial to the trade of his country. Under the earlier 
Czars we have heard of commercial treaties between 
Bulgaria and other states, but it was reserved for 
Asen II. to secure for his subjects by his wise conces- 
sions constant communications with the merchants 
of Ragusa, whose city was the western outlet for the 
whole inland trade of the Peninsula. An ancient 
charter of Asen allowed them free access to all his 
dominions as " the truest and dearest guests of his 
Majesty." When, in the reign of his son Michael, 
the Ragusans gave Bulgaria what we should now call 
the " most-favoured-nation clause " in their treaties, 
they mentioned " the genuine friendship of the famous 
Czar John Asen," and granted the Bulgarians free 
entry to their city " by gate, bridge, or ford," and 
permission to buy or sell everything within ; grain 
alone it was forbidden them to export without a 
special order. Both Venice and Genoa had their 
Consuls in Bulgaria, and the legal rights of foreign 
traders were carefully defined. 

Trnovo, his capital, rivalled and even surpassed the 
splendours of Preslav under the earlier Empire. Even 
to-day, after all the changes of centuries, the ancient 

13 



I78 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

residence of the Asenide dynasty cannot fail to 
attract the tourist, alike by its quaint position and its 
historic ruins. But the modern Trnovo is but a 
shadow of what it was in the golden age of the second 
Asen. The " queen of cities, the famous burgh," as 
patriotic writers loved to call it, seemed to Asen's 
contemporaries scarcely inferior to Constantinople. 
No other town in Bulgaria is so intimately associated 
with the most stirring events of the national history. 
"Built by the hands of giants " — so ran the legend of 
its foundation — it had witnessed the rise of Sisman 
and his doughty line. Within its walls the first Asen 
had received the crown from the hands of the people ; 
and in its modest inn first saw the light the ablest of 
modern Bulgarian statesmen, the ill-starred Stambu- 
loff. Here were the Palace of the Czars and the resi- 
dence of the head of the Bulgarian Church ; here, too, 
was the great cathedral, long since gone. But the 
Church of the Forty Martyrs still remains to tell of 
Asen's power and compensate us for the loss of the 
ancient coronation church of the Bulgarian Czars. 
Within its vaults was their last resting-place, on its 
walls are still visible many an inscription of their 
epoch. The glory has departed from Trnovo ; a new 
and modern capital has taken the place which it once 
occupied in the history of Bulgaria. But in the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries the "citadel of thorns," 
from which Trnovo took its name, looked down upon 
all that was splendid and all that was noblest in the 
land. 

Asen's peaceful activity extended itself over the 
Bulgarian hierarchy. He was not only a builder of 



THE BULGARIAN PATRIARCH. \JC) 

churches, but he refounded the National Church. 
Kalojan's " union " with Rome had only lasted as 
long as he had something to gain from the Pope or 
something to fear from the Franks. Asen threw off 
even the pretence of devotion to the Papacy ; the 
head of the Catholic Church hurled at him the terrors 
of excommunication, and, when that failed, hounded 
on the King of Hungary against him. But this 
crusade proved a failure, and the threat of excom- 
munication fell flat. Asen declared the Church of 
Trnovo independent, alike of Rome and Constanti- 
nople, and in the presence of Greek and Bulgarian 
bishops the Primate of Bulgaria was solemnly raised 
to the dignity of Patriarch. But Asen had broad 
sympathies. One of the chief complaints made 
against him by the Pope was his protection of the 
Bogomiles ; but lovers of toleration will reckon as not 
the least of his glories the generous permission, which 
he extended to Catholics, Orthodox Greeks, and 
" heretics " alike, to worship in their own way without 
hindrance from him. No Czar was more beneficent 
towards the monks. The great monastery of Ryl was 
richly endowed, and the " holy mountain " of Athos 
enriched by his donations. No wonder that a Bul- 
garian priest wrote of him that " he had exalted the 
Empire of the Czars to the glory of God above all his 
forbears ; for he built monasteries and adorned them 
with gold and pearls and stones of great price ; every 
grade of the hierarchy did he honour, bishops, priests, 
and deacons alike, and at last restored the Bulgarian 
Patriarch." When he died in 1 241, the two boys, who 
followed him in rapid succession on the throne, had 



IC30 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

neither the experience nor the strength to avert the 
decline of the state. The history of the Balkan 
Peninsula proves that the welfare of a Slav nation is 
almost invariably bound up with one man, and when 
he falls the nation falls with him. 

Within three months half of Asen's empire was 
gone. His eldest son, Kaliman I., a boy of nine, was 
helpless, and his half-brother, Michael Asen, struggled 
valiantly but in vain to recover the lost provinces. 
The Venetians attacked him on the Black Sea, and 
the whole of his father's Thracian and Mace- 
donian possessions remained in the enemy's hands. 
Kaliman II., his cousin, who rose upon his murdered 
body to the throne, died a violent death, and, in 
default of a direct lineal descendant of Asen, the 
nobles and clergy met at Trnovo and elected Con- 
stantine, a Serb, as their Czar. The new sovereign 
endeavoured to strengthen his position by taking the 
honoured name of Asen and marrying the grand- 
daughter of John II., but his reign was spent in 
barren wars with the King of Hungary and the 
restored Greek Empire. The former threatened the 
Bulgarian capital, and boastfully styled himself " King 
of Bulgaria " — an incident which is interesting as the 
first appearance of the Hungarian monarchy as a 
claimant of the Balkan lands. The alliance of Con- 
stantine Asen with the King of Naples against the 
Greek Emperor is a proof of the importance attached 
to Bulgaria in Italy at that date, and it is curious to 
find the Neapolitan archives full of Bulgarian names, 
and a part of that city called after these strange 
allies. But the greatest mistake of Constantine's 



IVAJLO S CAREER. l8l 

feign was his second marriage with a Greek princess. 
We have seen before that these unions were usually 
disastrous for Bulgaria. Indeed, as a rule, the wives 
of the Bulgarian Czars have left an evil record behind 
them. But Constantine's Greek consort was the 
worst of them all. She made her husband's severe 
illness an excuse for seizing supreme power for herself 
in the name of her boy Michael. By intrigues, more 
worthy of the Byzantine than the rough Bulgarian 
Court, she " removed," under the most solemn pro- 
testations of affection, all the most dangerous of the 
nobles. Meanwhile the empire lay open to the 
attacks of the Tartars, who, after overrunning Rou- 
mania, had begun to cross the Danube. In this 
extremity, with a disabled Czar and a designing 
woman on the throne, Bulgaria threw itself into the 
arms of a restless adventurer, named Ivajlo, who had 
abandoned the profession of a shepherd for the more 
congenial one of a brigand. Ivajlo's career reads like 
a romance. He told the people how the holy saints 
had appeared to him in a dream and bade him pre- 
pare himself for the great destiny which lay before 
him. Numbers flocked to his standard ; his success 
over the Tartars brought the whole country to his 
side ; Constantine lost his life and his throne, and the 
Greek Emperor himself began to fear that another 
Simeon or Samuel had arisen. Constantine's crafty 
widow became the wife of the conqueror ; but a new 
pretender of the stock of old Asen, supported by 
Byzantine troops, arrived with an army at Trnovo. 
The inhabitants, believing that Ivajlo had died in the 
act of repelling a fresh Tartar invasion, acknowledged 



102 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

their assailant as John Asen III., thankful to be rid 
of the cunning Greek woman who had brought so 
much harm upon them. When the holy office was 
chanted in the Bulgarian churches to the memory of 
the departed consorts of the Czars, her name was 
alone omitted from the list. 

The glory of Bulgaria had fallen low. A genera- 
tion had barely elapsed since the death of the second 
Asen, yet his empire had been shorn of all his con- 
quests ; a nominee of the Greek Emperor sat upon 
the throne of the Czars ; a Tartar chief was com- 
mander of the Bulgarian armies ; dissension and the 
lack of authority were bringing the country to de- 
struction. At this moment Ivajlo suddenly reap- 
peared, as if from the dead. The magic of his name 
made the Greekling tremble in his palace at Trnovo, 
and the Greek armies sent to assist him were easily 
defeated. To rid Bulgaria of her feeble ruler was 
easy, but Ivajlo found that there was another rival in 
the field. This man, the founder of the fourth Bul- 
garian dynasty, sprang from an old Rumanian family 
called Terterij, which was allied with the noblest of 
the land. His aristocratic connections and personal 
bravery led the Bulgarians to prefer him to the humble 
shepherd, who had led their armies against the Tartars, 
and in 1280 George Terterij I. was proclaimed Czar. 
His peasant foe fled to the court of Nogaj, Chan of 
the Golden Horde of Tartars, at that time the terror 
of the Balkan Peninsula, who cut his throat in a 
drunken fit. But several years later a false Ivajlo 
could still find a following among the Bulgarian 
hinds. 



THE TERTERIJ DYNASTY. \%% 

Terterij I. was unable to stem the tide of Tartar 
invasion either by force or diplomacy. The dreaded 
Nogaj, accustomed to play the part of king-maker, 
married his son Coki to the daughter of the Czar, and 
then deposed him, setting up a Bulgarian noble as a 
puppet in his place. For the first time the proud 
Bulgarian Empire had become a mere Tartar fief. 
But the Tartars soon sought to be masters in name 
as well as in fact. Coki marched into Bulgaria and 
claimed the crown, but the country found a liberator 
in Svetelav, son of Terterij, who made an end of the 
Tartar chief and was hailed by a thankful people as 
their Czar. For a time the days of the second Asen 
seemed to have returned. Svetelav put down all his 
rivals, won back territory from the Greeks, and gave 
his subjects for many years the unwonted blessings of 
peace. But with his son and successor, Terterij II., 
his race became extinct, and, in order to prevent the 
Empire from falling to pieces, the nobles had to select 
a new dynasty, the fifth and last of old Bulgarian 
history. For more than a generation Vidin and the 
country near it had been formed into an independent 
principality under the House of Sisman — a family 
distinct from the old Sisman clan of Trnovo, but con- 
nected with the Kumanian aristocracy. It was upon 
his son Michael that the choice of the Bulgarians now 
fell, and in 1323 he became their Czar. 

At first his policy was a complete success. By 
playing off one Byzantine faction against another, he 
nearly realised the dream of Simeon and Asen by 
adding Constantinople to his dominions. But by a 
complete turn of fortune's wheel, the same monarch, 



184 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

who was within an ace of capturing the capital, fell, 
and involved his country in his fall, before the growing 
might of Servia. 

It had long been evident that sooner or later the 
Serbs and Bulgarians would fight for the hegemony 
of the Balkans, and the domestic differences, which 
sprang up between the two courts owing to Michael's 
shameful treatment of his Serb consort, were the 
occasion rather than the cause of the collision. 
Michael formed a league of Greeks, Roumanians, 
and Bulgarians against the Serb King Stephen 
Uros III., and boasted that he would set up his 
throne in his rival's land. But the Serbs fell upon 
his army unawares at Velbuzd, the present Kostendil, 
on June 28, 1330, a day still remembered with sorrow 
by patriotic Bulgarians ; Michael's forces were routed, 
and the Czar fell from his horse and was slain on the 
spot. When next morning the nobles were shown 
by the victor the corpse of their sovereign, they burst 
into tears. And well they might ; for the might of 
the Bulgarian Empire had fallen for ever. The 
Serb monarch abstained, indeed, from annexing the 
country ; but Dusan, his successor, who had shared 
the victory with him, reduced the Bulgarian govern- 
ment to complete dependence. For sixty years more, 
Bulgaria continued to retain her Czars of'Sisman's 
stock, but from the battle of Velbuzd to the death 
of Dusan in 1356 they were content to follow the 
policy of Servia, with whose ruler they were closely 
connected by ties of marriage. Dusan even added 
the title of " Czar of the Bulgarians " to his other 
attributes, and when the war broke out between 



JOHN ALEXANDER. 185 

Servia and Bulgaria in 1885, the people in the streets 
of Belgrade invoked his name. 

During his reign of a quarter of a century, Bulgaria 
was secure from the Greeks in the south and the 
Hungarians in the north. The close alliance of the 
two adjoining Balkan states under two able rulers 
formed an impenetrable barrier to foreign invasion, 
which might teach a lesson to the Balkan statesmen 
of to-day. John Alexander, Dusan's brother-in-law, 
who was contemporary with him on the Bulgarian 
throne, was a man of considerable energy and an 
assiduous patron of literature. He was the last of the 
old Bulgarian monarchs, who extended the frontiers 
of his country at the expense of the Byzantine 
Empire ; but his conquests were soon to be taken 
away by a far more formidable foe. It is now for 
the first time that we hear of the Turks in Bulgaria. 
About the middle of the fourteenth century they 
began to harry the Bulgarian territory south of the 
Balkans. The natives fully recognised the gravity 
of this new danger. As the Czar rode through the 
streets of his capital, the people cried aloud that he 
should make a league with the Greeks against the 
common foe. But the foreign policy of Bulgaria was 
then wholly guided by that of Servia, and it did not 
suit the latter that her neighbour should enter into 
close relations with the Greek Empire. The story 
goes that the Emperor sent a message to both the 
Servian and Bulgarian rulers, telling them that they 
would rue the day on which they had refused to help 
him. Dusan and John Alexander are said to have 
scornfully replied that when the Turks came near 



1 86 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

them, they would know how to defend themselves. 
The Greek Emperor's words came true ; and nothing 
assisted the advance of the Ottoman power in Europe 
so much as the jealousies of the Balkan peoples. 
To the same cause it owes in no small measure its 
maintenance to this day. The first serious blow 
which the Turks dealt at the Bulgarian Empire was 
the capture of Eski Zagora and Philippopolis in 
1362. From that moment dates the establishment 
of a Turkish governor in Roumelia and the forma- 
tion of the celebrated Turkish corps of vojnik or 
" warriors," composed of Bulgarian Christians, who 
were exempt from taxes in return for military service 
to their Ottoman masters. The national legends have 
preserved the memory of princes and nobles who 
" fought like heroes against the paynim, and shed 
their blood for the true faith of Christ." Yet at this 
moment of all others, we find them raising Turkish 
mercenaries for a final attack on the Greek Empire ! 
John Sisman III., the last of the long line of Bul- 
garian C^ars, who came to the throne in 1365, actually 
seized the Greek Emperor, John Paleologus, when he 
came to implore his aid against the Turks, and only 
released him at the armed intervention of the Count 
of Savoy. 

Theological quarrels yet further weakened the 
tottering Bulgarian realm. To the Bogomiles, whose 
schism had so long divided the people against itself, 
were now added other fanatical sects, whose votaries 
ran about the streets with no other clothing than a 
hollow gourd, or revived the last lingering traces of 
pagan worship. Councils were held in vain, the pun- 



ADVANCE OF THE TURKS. l8/> 

ishments of the Church were useless. The second 
marriage of the Czar John Alexander with a lovely 
Jewish maiden was a fresh source of discord. The 
sons of the first and second union divided their 
father's empire between them ; Sisman III. reigned 
at Trnovo, Sracimir at Vidin, while a third inde- 
pendent prince, Dobrotic, established himself in the 
low-lying region of the Drobrudza, which still bears 
his name. Thus contemporary writers speak of 
"three Bulgarias." The one pleasant feature of 
this gloomy era was the revival of learning. At 
the instigation of John Alexander, Greek chronicles 
and works of theology were translated into the 
Slavonic tongue. No other period is so rich in 
manuscripts, some of them exquisitely illuminated. 
Theodosius of Trnovo and still more his pupil, the 
Patriarch Euthemius enriched the national literature 
with their theological and biographical works. But 
their successors were mere rhetoricians, whose bom- 
bastic writings were the last expiring efforts of the 
dying empire. 

The Turks advanced apace when the death of 
Dusan had removed the last Balkan ruler who had 
the power to resist them. The Bulgarian Czar Sis- 
man III. became their vassal in 1366, and pledged 
himself to aid them. Suspicious of his sincerity, the 
conquerors demanded his sister as a hostage. An 
old chronicler tells of " the great lady who was given 
to the mighty Sultan Murad for the Bulgarian people, 
and, although his wife, kept the Christian faith and 
saved her country." The "fair Bulgarian," so the 
story goes, was offered a mosque full of silver can- 



1 88 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

delabra as the reward of apostasy ; but she replied 
with pride, " Dear is my religion to me, a Turkish 
woman will I never be." A few years later Sofia was 
captured by a trick, and Sisman forced to fall down 
on his knees with his wife and family and implore 
the Sultan's mercy. For a brief space he was 
allowed, on payment of a tribute, to keep his throne. 
But, when the Serb kingdom fell on the plain of 
Kossovo, Bulgaria was doomed. The ancient capital 
of the Czars surrendered after a three months' siege 
in 1 393. Palaces and churches perished in the flames, 
the cathedral became a mosque, the relics of the 
saints were destroyed. Amid the general convulsion 
one noble figure stands out in solemn grandeur. 
The learned Patriarch Euthemius went fearlessly 
forth from the city to soften the fury of the con- 
queror. His persuasions prevailed with the Sultan's 
son, who commanded the besieging force. But the 
governor, who was appointed on his departure, 
resolved by one sanguinary deed to crush the Bul- 
garian chivalry for ever. He summoned the nobles 
and principal citizens together in one of the few 
remaining churches under pretext of a debate, and 
then ordered his soldiers to cut them down. Eu- 
themius, stripped of his holy garb, was ordered to 
be beheaded on the walls in the sight of his flock. 
But a miracle from heaven arrested, so says his 
biographer, the headsman's hand, and the victim 
was set free. At the command of the Sultan, the 
survivors of this horrible carnage were driven forth 
as exiles from their native land, and in the heart 
of Asia Minor found a grave. Turkish colonists 



FALL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 1 89 

occupied their places, and the famous hill of the 
Czars received a Turkish name. 

Sisman had not been at Trnovo when the city was 
besieged ; but he did not long survive its capture. 
His end is obscured in uncertainty ; most authorities 
state that he died in prison or on the scaffold. But 
the patriotic fancy of the national bards has depicted 
the last of the Czars as dying in battle for his country. 
Hard by the sources of the Marica, according to this 
legend, was he wounded seven times, where seven 
springs of water may still be seen. So fierce was the 
fight, that the river ran red with blood, and the plain 
is called the " field of bones " to this day. The ruins 
of a neighbouring castle preserve the name of Sisman, 
and even the Turks respected his grave. His half- 
brother Sracimir still remained in Vidin, but in 1398 
was expelled by the Sultan ; the attempt of King 
Sigismund of Hungary and Mirtschea of Wallachia 
to rescue Bulgaria from its conquerors collapsed on 
the battlefield of Nicopolis ; the whole land owned 
the supremacy of the Turk. 

Thus fell, after the lapse of two centuries, the 
Second Bulgarian Empire. The causes of its fall are 
not difficult to perceive. The old Bulgarian system 
was concentrated in an aristocracy which, except 
under the iron hand of a strong Czar, was rarely 
united. The masses, degraded to the level of serfs 
and chained to the soil, had no common interests 
with their lords. The clergy, instead of striving to 
raise and influence the people, wasted their energies 
in hairsplitting or passed their lives in monkish 
seclusion. Their intolerance drove the Bogomiles 



I90 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

in Bulgaria as in Bosnia, into the arms of the Turks, 
who seemed to the persecuted heretics more generous 
than their Christian oppressors. Morally, Bulgaria 
was slowly but surely undermined by its intercourse 
with the Byzantine Empire. The nobles and the 
priesthood were most affected by this sinister influ- 
ence, and it is noticeable that in the old as in the 
new Bulgaria the ablest men have usually sprung 
from the virgin soil of the peasantry. Now and 
again a great ruler, a Simeon, a Samuel, or an 
Asen II., raised the Bulgarian state to a command- 
ing position. But the power of these princes died 
with them, and their empire soon dwindled away. 

The social condition of the people under the rule 
of the Czars was much the same as in other parts 
of Europe during the Middle Ages. When the Czar 
made a progress through his land, nobles and monks, 
townsmen and peasants had to accompany him and 
provide food and lodging for him and his own retinue 
at their own expense. This priselica, as it was called, 
became a grievous burden, and it was not the only 
one whigh the peasantry were forced to bear. The 
Czar's subjects were obliged to work on his estates, 
look after his vineyards, and reap his crops. Only 
the dependents of the monasteries were exempt from 
this forced labour. In the towns the burghers had to 
build the castle and guard the gaol ; in the country 
the peasant was a serf, who was permitted to hold 
land and money of his own, but could not quit his 
property if he would. It was hoped that in this way 
the depopulation, caused by the constant wars, might 
be checked. Then, as now, agriculture was the 



BULGARIAN TRADE. 



191 



favourite pursuit of the Bulgarian race. Horse 
breeding was a great source of wealth, and sheep 
and pigs were abundant. But trade, as we have 
seen, expanded at a very early date all over the 
country, and caravans laden with Italian wares might 
be seen slowly wending their way through the moun- 



AM 




STATUE OF PAN AT VARNA. 



tain passes or along the great highway from Sofia to 
Philippopolis. The customs dues were no insignifi- 
cant part of the revenue, and the number of gold, 
silver, and copper coins, which date from this period, 



I92 THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE. 

shows that there must have been a large demand for 
a medium of exchange. Under the old Czars, how- 
ever, the taxes were paid in kind, until the Greeks 
introduced the system of cash payment. 

War was, of course, the favourite pursuit of the 
Bulgarian monarchs, although they sometimes con- 
tented themselves for long periods with the mimic 
warfare of the chase. The love of fighting, now 
much less conspicuous in Bulgaria, was before the 
long Turkish domination, the chief characteristic of 
the people. We find Bulgarian mercenaries in many 
lands during this period, but they were of little use 
in sieges ; in guerilla warfare among mountains they 
were pre-eminent. Their love of booty became pro- 
verbial, but they spared the lives of their Christian 
prisoners. Yet in time of peace there was profound 
respect for those ancient customs, which took the 
place of any regular code of law. The ancient 
Slavonic practice of making the whole village re- 
sponsible for the offences of any of its inhabitants, 
in case the culprit had escaped punishment, existed 
in Bulgaria. The " Golden Bulls " of the Czars were 
very elaborate documents, and the ordinances of the 
Church are often mentioned. Traces of representa- 
tive institutions are to be seen in the assemblies of 
the two classes of nobles or boljars, great and small, 
and the various grades of clergy. These gatherings 
were held for two purposes, the election of a Czar, 
when there was no lineal descendant of the last ruler, 
and the punishment of heretics. Three of the Czars 
owed their throne to this method of election. The 
masses had no voice in the proceedings, for old 



THE BULGARIAN COURT. 



193 



Bulgaria, unlike the " Peasant state " of to-day, was 
essentially aristocratic. All the court offices, of which 
there were many, were filled by the nobles, and it 
was from their ranks that the Czar's Council of State 
was chosen. In fact, the monarch himself was often 
merely primus inter pares. Gorgeous court cere- 
monies and princely hospitality lent splendour to the 
Bulgarian Empire, but the lot of the people, even in 
the golden age of the nation, cannot have been ideal. 




14 



V. 



BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 



(1398-1878.) 



The Turkish supremacy in Bulgaria, which lasted 
from the end of the fourteenth century down to our 
own time, is the gloomiest epoch in the national 
annals. One after the other every Christian state in 
the Balkan Peninsula, with the sole exception of 
Montenegro, fell beneath the power of the Ottoman 
invaders, whose armies reached the gates of Vienna. 
Freedom vanished, literature languished, and even 
the memories of Bulgaria's glorious past under Czars 
of her own were obliterated as far as possible by her 
Turkish masters. The very character of her once 
warlike sons changed under the steady influence of 
an alien domination. Without intellectual or practi- 
cal leaders, the Bulgarian people bowed down for 
nearly five centuries beneath the yoke of the Sultans. 
At last there came a time when Western Europe had 
almost forgotten the existence of a nation which had 
once taken a prominent rank among the great Powers. 

The conquerors lost no time in organising the. 

194 



THE TURKISH RULE. 1 95 

government of the country after their own fashion. 
The whole of the Balkan Peninsula, with the excep- 
tion of Bosnia, was called Rumili, a corruption of the 
Byzantine form Romania, and placed under the 
authority of an official known as a Beglerbeg. Bul- 
garia was included in his province, and he fixed his 
residence at Sofia, which seemed marked out by its 
central position as the capital of the Peninsula. 
Rumili was further subdivided into twenty-six sand- 
j'aks, or districts, several of which were included in 
Bulgaria. The officials were not always Turks, for 
the apostasy of the noble Bulgarian families was 
usually rewarded with place and power. At the 
close of the sixteenth century we find a Bulgarian 
occupying the proud position of Grand Vizier, and 
Bulgarian Mussulmans exist to-day, under the name 
of Pomaks, in several parts of the country, especially 
in the north-east corner, as well as in Macedonia. 
The Turkish practice of carrying off the flower of 
the Bulgarian youth every five years to serve in the 
corps of Janissaries was not only a terrible grievance 
to the people, but introduced a dangerous Slav ele- 
ment into the Turkish army. The position of the 
Christians in the conquered provinces was indeed 
miserable, especially after the Turkish rule had 
begun to decline. During the best days of the Otto- 
man Empire large sums of money were spent on 
roads, trade flourished, the rights of citizens were 
respected, and the churches of the Christian com- 
munities remained unviolated. But the decay of 
the Turkish power affected the whole Empire. The 
people of Ragusa, the " South Slavonic Athens," as it 



I96 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

was called, had always been specially favoured by the 
rulers of Bulgaria, and the Turks continued their privi- 
leges. But gradually commerce fell off, foreign trades 
were hampered by absurd regulations ; the highways 
were neglected, the khans and caravanserais allowed 
to fall into ruins. The Christian rayahs were for- 
bidden to build churches or possess bells ; their dress 
was to be of one cut, their daughters were seized to 
grace the harems of their masters. Taxes became 
enormous, tax-collectors extortionate. Every Chris- 
tian above the age of fourteen had to pay a poll-tax 
or haratch of a ducat, a tax for every head of cattle 
and the tithe of the products of the field. In addition 
to this, he was forced to labour, as in the old days, on 
the land of his feudal lord, who was often one of his 
own countrymen converted to Islam. These regular 
payments were augmented by the irregular extor- 
tions of corrupt officials, who, having gained their 
posts by bribes, had to recoup themselves for their 
outlay at the expense of their subjects. One for- 
tunate class of Christians escaped all these annoyances. 
We have already alluded to the vojnik, warriors who 
placed their swords at the disposal of the Turks on 
condition of exemption from taxation and feudal 
burdens. Whole village communities, forming a 
privileged caste, were thus to be found side by side 
with the downtrodden Christians, who did not care to 
fight the battles of the Ottoman. The traveller could 
tell the vojnik by his parti-coloured garments, his 
martial gait, and his prosperous appearance. He 
received, it is true, no pay ; but that was an advan- 
tage, for it could not fall into arrear, while his posi- 



THE CHURCH. \gj 

tive gains were very great. But his privileges 
gradually ceased, though the name survived down 
to the present century. 

The Church had always been an important factor 
in the life of the Balkan states. But under the 
Turkish domination it ceased to be a national insti- 
tution in Bulgaria. For while the country became 
politically a part of the Ottoman Empire, its church 
passed into the hands of the Greeks. As early as 
1394 the see of Trnovo was subordinated to the 
Patriarch of Constantinople, and Greek bishops and 
Bibles entered Bulgaria, displacing the native priest- 
hood and the vernacular scriptures. In Bulgaria, as 
in Roumania, the Phanariotes obtained a fatal in- 
fluence ; but while in the latter country they gained 
political power, in the former their sphere was eccle- 
siastical. The lowest as well as the highest offices in 
the Church were bought and sold, and the purchasers 
were often men of the lowest class. We even hear 
of barbers becoming bishops and coffee-sellers priests. 
No fewer than 140 patriarchs are mentioned in 390 
years, and it is therefore clear that the Phanariotes, 
who had paid highly for their brief period of office, 
must have lost no time in recovering their expenses. 
" The art of extortion," says a Prussian diplomatist of 
the last century, " has been reduced by them to a 
system," so that between Greek ecclesiastics and 
Turkish governors the lot of the poor Bulgarian 
peasant was hard to bear. When the last indepen- 
dent Slavonic churches of Ipek and Ochrida were 
sacrificed to Phanariote zeal, the sole remaining 
obstacle to their scheme for making the Greek Ian- 



I98 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS, 

guage and liturgy supreme throughout the Peninsula 
was removed. In the early days of Turkish rule 
books in the vernacular were still printed at Sofia. 
But the Phanariotes made short work of them. By 
their orders the old library of the patriarchs of 
Trnovo was committed to the flames. Ancient Bul- 
garian manuscripts, which had survived the ravages 
of war, were wantonly destroyed. No wonder that 
records of the Turkish period are scarce, for the 
Greek clergy ended what the Turks began. The 
Cyrillic character itself was forgotten, the language 
of the people proscribed. The Bulgarians learnt off 
their prayers in a tongue which they could not under- 
stand. Greek schools, the Greek alphabet, and Greek 
books were the dominant features of the Bulgarian's 
intellectual life at the dawn of the present century. 
A man considered it a disgrace to be called a Bul- 
garian. " No," he would reply, " I am a Greek." 
The spiritual tyranny of the Phanariotes was even 
worse than the political tyranny of the Turks. For 
the Turks were not bigots, the Phanariotes were. 

Slow4y a national movement against both these 
forms of oppression began. For long years the Bul- 
garians lay helpless and hopeless beneath the power 
of their twin masters. At the very outset, it is true, 
there were faint attempts to drive out the Turks. Thus 
the sons of the last two Czars of Vidin and Trnovo, 
Sracimir and Sisman, raised the standard of revolt 
in 1405, and the Hungarians, who had in the old days 
laid claim to the Bulgarian crown, twice endeavoured 
to conquer the country. But these efforts were futile, 
and the decisive defeat of the heroic John Hunyad 



THE BRIGANDS. 1 99 

and the death of the Hungarian King Vladislav on 
the fatal field of Varna in 1444 put an end to the 
aspirations of Bulgaria for more than a century. 
Once again, in 1595, we hear of an abortive rising 
instigated by a Ragusan agent. This man, who had 
lived many years among the people, strongly urged 
the Prince of Transylvania, at that time engaged in 
war with the Turks in Roumania, to call the Bul- 
garians to arms. He told the Prince that they were 
discontented owing to the increased extortions of 
the officials and the brutality of the troops. They 
were only waiting the arrival of Christian allies to 
rise as one man. The Prince was quite ready for the 
enterprise, and the Ragusan stirred up disturbances 
in Varna and other places. But the insurrection 
failed, and we read of no further organised revolts 
until the present century. 

In the dearth of national leaders the patriotic 
movement fell into the hands of the brigand chiefs. 
These popular heroes of the Balkans appear in 
Servia under the name of Haiduks, in Bulgaria under 
that of Haidutin, and in Greece under that of Klefts. 
Like Robin Hood in our own ballads, they are repre- 
sented as the protectors of the poor t and the weak, 
the friends of Christians, and the ruthless scourge of 
the Mohammedan oppressor. Thousands of legends 
and songs are connected with their exploits ; their 
ranks were recruited from all those who had insults to 
avenge or nothing but their lives to lose. If a Bul- 
garian once joined them his only chance of safety 
was to stick loyally to his fellows, for he had put him- 
self beyond the pale. The hand of every Turk was 



200 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

against him and his hand was against every Turk. 
The villagers, groaning beneath the exactions of their 
lords, welcomed the Haidutin as a deliverer. Women 
were sacred in the eyes of these chivalrous cut-throats, 
for they firmly believed that whoever touched a help- 
less damsel would die in a Turkish gaol. They even 
included the fair sex in their ranks. We hear of 
Bulgarian Amazons, who stormed Turkish caravans, 
sabre in hand, with the skill and courage of men. A 
hundred years ago one of the most desperate of these 
bands was commanded by a woman, who performed 
such prodigies of valour that she actually passed for 
a man. When caught no mercy was shown to them ; 
after death their heads adorned the town-walls, their 
bodies being impaled alive before the gates. In 
winter the lack of cover on the Balkans drove them 
to seek an honest livelihood, and they would bury 
their arms ready for the next summer beneath the 
trees. To this day the bark of many an ancient oak 
bears the secret sign by which they marked the spot. 
The Haidutin despised mere thieves as " poultry- 
stealers," and regarded himself as a patriot and a bene- 
factor of his race. In the regard which they showed 
for their own countrymen they differed from the 
notorious Krdzaligen, who devasted Bulgaria between 
1792 and 1804. The Turks were powerless against 
these desperadoes. The soldiers sent to subdue them 
as often as not sided with them, and at the end of 
every fresh campaign in the Peninsula numbers of 
discharged troopers flocked to the mountain camps. 
One of their chiefs, known as " the cunning leader," 
became quite a hero of romance. But most of them 



„)l 



" TOOTH-MONEY. 201 

were bloodthirsty ruffians, who spared neither woman 
nor child, and made no distinction between Turk 
and Bulgarian. Their most celebrated patron, Osman 
Pasvanoglu, who established himself as Pasha of 
Vidin in defiance of the Porte, levied taxes and coined 
money on his own account. He had a large army at 
his disposal, which enabled him to laugh at the regu- 
lar forces of the Sultan. Repeated sieges of Vidin 
proved a complete failure, and the Pasha meditated 
a descent on Constantinople in return. Upon the sup- 
pression of the Krdsaligen, the survivors augmented 
his following. But he died shortly afterwards, and 
they entered the service of the Government, quarter- 
ing themselves on the villages and demanding " tooth 
money " or Dyscliak for the wear and tear of their 
teeth on the hard bread of the peasants. Terrible 
was the destruction which they had caused. A 
Frenchman, who travelled through Bulgaria at this 
period disguised as a Tartar, has left a grim descrip- 
tion of the condition of the country. A stillness, as 
of the grave, reigned over the deserted fields, corpses 
and smouldering cottages marked the spot where the 
brigands had been, the peasants had either fled or 
had fallen a prey to the wild beasts and still wilder 
men who roamed the land. 

The hopes of the Bulgarians had been temporarily 
raised by the Austrian victories over the Turks at the 
end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eigh- 
teenth century. But after the disastrous Peace of 
Belgrade in 1739 it was to Russia rather than Austria 
that they looked for aid. At Tilsit Napoleon actually 
drew up a scheme of partition, by which Bulgaria 



202 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

and the two Danubian Principalities were to be 
assigned to the Russians. The latter actually overran 
the country in 1810, and captured Plevna and other 
strong places. But Napoleon's march to Moscow 
forced them to retire. One advantage accrued to the 
natives from this Russo-Turkish war : the cession of 
Bessarabia to Russia at the Peace of Bucharest pro- 
vided the victims of Turkish oppression with a place 
of refuge, where they were kindly treated by a 
paternal governor. But even there, as afterwards in 
their own country, they soon learnt that Russian pro- 
tection might be as onerous as Turkish tyranny. 
But when the Russians marched through Bulgaria in 
1829 they found a warmer welcome than before. Many 
brigands enlisted with them just as they had joined 
the Greeks during the Greek War of Independence, 
and a certain Mamarcov attempted to unfold the 
banner of Bulgarian freedom on the ruins of Trnovo. 
His countrymen were ready to respond to his 
appeal ; but the Russians arrested him and the 
peace of Adrianople put an end to the movement. A 
few year's later he organised a conspiracy on his own 
account which was betrayed to the Turks, and he died 
in exile, meditating on the ingratitude of the Russian 
Government. It is remarkable that an Englishman, 
who was travelling through Bulgaria during this Rus- 
sian occupation, had prophesied to the natives that 
England would sympathise with them in their strug- 
gle to be free and that an independent Bulgaria 
would be a wall between Russia and Turkey. The 
result of the Crimean War diminished their hopes of 
Russian aid, and they began to look to those Western 



MIDHAT* S ADMINISTRATION. 203 

Powers, who had shown disgust at the " Bulgarian 
atrocities " of 1841, and had wrung from the Sultan 
the famous promise of civil and religious equality in 
1856. Both Abdul Medjid and his predecessor Mah- 
moud II. were really anxious to improve the con- 
dition of their Bulgarian subjects ; the former had 
taken the unusual step of personally visiting his 
Balkan lands ; the latter established provincial 
councils, on which Christians sat. But the best and 
ablest of all Turkish governors was Midhat Pasha, 
whose four years' administration of the newly-created 
vilayet, or province of the Danube, which included 
Bulgaria and had its centre at Rustchuk, did more for 
the material improvement of the country than any 
number of paper reforms. In spite of the havoc 
caused by the migration of a horde of Tartars from 
the Crimea and nearly half a million Circassians 
from the Caucasus, Bulgaria became under Midhat a 
model to the rest of the Turkish Empire. If he had 
remained there longer, he might have made it what 
Bosnia is to-day. 

Men of letters are apt to exaggerate the influence 
of literature upon politics ; but there is no reason to 
doubt that the literary revival in Bulgaria was a very 
powerful factor in bringing about the national inde- 
pendence. It began with the publication of Paysij's 
"Bulgarian History" in 1762 — a work with no pre- 
tensions to scientific accuracy, but which aroused the 
dormant patriotism of the people where a coldly critical 
and impartial narrative would have failed. Paysij's 
pupil, Sofranij, who has given us a graphic picture of his 
own times, laboured hard to interest the masses, who 



264 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

had been, by virtue of their ignorance, far less tainted 
than their superiors with cosmopolitan ideas, in the 
glorious past of their country. These isolated efforts 
were followed early in the present century by the 
Bulgarian colony at Bucharest, whose aim was the 
establishment of a national literature and system of 
education. An enthusiastic admirer of Bulgaria, a 
Russian named Venelin, whose devotion to learning 
under the greatest hardships is most affecting, gave 
expression to their ideas in his " Old and New Bul- 
garians " which indirectly led to the foundation of the 
first Bulgarian school in the principality. It was at 
Gabrovo in 1835 that this important event took place, 
and the founder, Apriloff, had been inspired by the 
perusal of Venelin's book. Keen as the Bulgarians 
have always shown themselves to be for instruc- 
tion, they eagerly embraced the opportunity of 
learning the elements in their own language. Other 
schools quickly followed, and in the brief space of 
ten years fifty-three were founded. The Turks, 
governed at that time by a reforming Sultan, did 
not inferfere, and the Greeks, though viewing this 
new policy with dislike, were not actively hostile. 
Yet it is to the influence of these institutions that 
we may trace the growth of national feeling and 
the desire for political and spiritual independence. 
The national schools of Bulgaria and Robert College, 
the American foundation at Constantinople, were the 
nurseries of many a Bulgarian patriot and not a few 
Bulgarian statesmen. For the first time the native 
writers extended their sphere beyond the dry bones 
of theological or scholastic controversy. Collections 



THE STRUGGLE WITH THE PHANAR10TES. 205 

of popular songs were made; Karaveloff, the uncle 
of the well-known politician, wrote novels and plays, 
while another politician, Dragan Zankoff, issued a 
German and a Bulgarian grammar. To " teach 
school," in Bulgaria no less than the United States, 
was the most usual training of the men who after- 
wards rose to power. 

To rid themselves of the Phanariote bishops and 
revive the National Church, became the chief aim of 
the patriots. A regular Culturkampf raged for nearly 
twenty years, in which the Turkish officials were far 
less adverse than the Greek clergy to the Bulgarian 
demands. An eminent Turkish statesman even went 
so far as to express the opinion that to separate the 
Greek and Bulgarian Christians was the true policy 
of the Porte. The newspapers and periodicals, the 
earliest of which dates from 1844 and was published 
at Smyrna, greatly encouraged the agitation. The 
Greeks exhausted every device to frustrate the aims 
of their fellow-Christians. When the Porte insisted 
at last upon the appointment of a Bulgarian as bishop, 
the Greek Patriarch nominated him in partibus in- 
fidelium. After a tedious struggle, a Bulgarian 
Exarchate was created by a firman of 1870. Two 
years later the first Exarch, to be resident at Con- 
stantinople, was elected by the Bulgarians and con- 
firmed by the Sultan. The Greek Patriarch promptly 
excommunicated him and all his followers, but the 
power of the Phanariote clergy was broken for ever. 

Such was the state of Bulgaria when the whole 
Eastern question was reopened by the outbreak of 
the insurrection in the Herzegovina in 1875. Thanks 



206 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

to the reforms of Midhat, the concessions of the Porte 
in ecclesiastical questions, and the stubborn character 
of the Bulgarian race, the country was in a superior 
condition to that of most parts of the Turkish Empire 
at the period just previous to its liberation. Indeed, 
the Russian officers, who visited Bulgaria during the 
war of 1 877, thought that the " little brothers," whom 
they had come to free, were materially better off under 
the Turkish yoke than many of their own moujiks 
under the benevolent despotism of the Czar. An 
impartial eye-witness has declared that to exchange 
their lot for that of the Bulgarians " would have been 
no bad bargain for the Russian peasants." But the 
cruelty and stupidity of the Turkish soldiers destroyed 
at one fell blow any good that Midhat had done, and 
outraged Europe regarded the Bulgarians as Christian 
martyrs. 

The peasants of the Balkan slopes, less political in 
their tastes than the Greeks or Serbs, and less war- 
like than the Roumanians or Montenegrins, had been 
little affected by the struggles of their neighbours for 
freedom. I A central revolutionary committee had 
existed for some years at Bucharest with sub-com- 
mittees in Bulgaria. But the execution of Vassili 
Levsky, the most active of these revolutionists in 
1873, had damped the ardour of the exiles. "Apostles," 
as they were called, of whom Stambuloff was the most 
energetic, continued to make futile efforts to raise 
their countrymen against the Turks, without, however, 
arousing any general enthusiasm. But the universal 
ferment of the Slavonic elements in the Turkish 
Empire during 1875 extended to the usually stolid 



THE BULGARIAN ATROCITIES. 



207 



and unemotional peasants of Bulgaria. In the spring 
of the following year, a slight rebellion took place 
under the leadership of schoolmasters and priests, 
some of whom had imbibed with their Russian edu- 
cation the Panslavist ideas then in vogue at St. 
Petersburg. At first the rising attracted little notice, 
and even the British Ambassador at Constantinople 




OLD BULGARIAN BRIDGE. 



treated it lightly. But the cruelty with which it was 
suppressed aroused the indignation of Europe. The 
massacres of Batak have even now, after the lapse of 
twenty years, remained impressed upon the mind of 
every one who is old enough to remember them. The 
energy of an English newspaper correspondent first 
gave to the world the tale of horror ; an official 
inquiry, conducted on the spot by Mr. Baring, fully 
confirmed the story of the journalist. The village 
of Batak, which lies in the mountains about eight 



208 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

hours' journey from Tatar Bazardjik, had been pre- 
paring for some days past to join in the insurrection, 
when a force of Bashi-Bazouks under the command 
of Achmet Agha of Dospat, and his colleague 
Mohammed Agha of Dorkovo, arrived at the place. 
After a desultory struggle the villagers surrendered, 
Achmet giving his word of honour that " not a hair 
of their head should be touched." On the 9th of 
May the massacre began. The defenceless inhabi- 
tants, who had surrendered their arms, were butchered 
like sheep. Some took refuge in the church, only 
to find that the sanctuary was turned into a shambles. 
The roof was torn off by the Turkish soldiers, who 
flung burning pieces of wood and rags dipped in 
petroleum down upon the poor wretches within. One 
old woman was the only survivor whom Mr. Baring 
could discover, and when he visited the spot more 
than two months later, the stench of the still unburied 
corpses was overpowering. Skulls with grey hair still 
attached to them, dark tresses which had once adorned 
the head of a maiden, the mutilated trunks of men, 
the rotting limbs of children — such was the sight 
which met the eyes of the British Commissioner and 
his Turkish companion. Torture had been applied 
to those who escaped death in order that they might 
reveal where their treasures were hidden. "To Achmet 
Agha and his men," wrote Mr. Baring, " belongs the 
distinction of having committed perhaps the most 
heinous crime that has stained the history of the 
present century." The Turkish Government showed 
its sense of propriety and at the same time set a 
precedent, which has recently been followed in the, 






MR. GLADSTONES PAMPHLET. 20O, 

case of the massacres at Sassun, by decorating the 
butcher of Batak. The Ottoman High Commissioner 
sent to inquire into the outrages formed, however, a 
truer estimate of what had been done. Addressing 
one of the authors of the massacre he asked him how 
much Russia had paid him for a deed which, as he 
phrased it, would be " the beginning of the end of the 
Ottoman Empire." 

Batak was not an isolated example of Turkish 
ferocity. Mr. Baring estimated the total number of 
Christians slaughtered in Bulgaria during the month 
of May at about 12,000. At Batak 5,000 persons out 
of a population of 7,000 had fallen ; at a small hamlet 
near Yamboli, all the male inhabitants were shot 
without trial ; M. Zankoff, the subsequent minister, 
only owed his escape on this occasion to the timely 
intervention of the station-master. The indignation of 
the civilised world at the news of these horrors knew 
no bounds. Mr. Gladstone by both pen and voice con- 
tributed to swell the torrent which threatened to sweep 
the whole system of Turkish administration in Bul- 
garia away. His famous pamphlet on the " Bulgarian 
Atrocities " speedily went through many editions ; 
and Lord Derby telegraphed on behalf of the British 
Government, that "any renewal of the outrages would 
be more fatal to the Porte than the loss of a battle." 
His words were literally true. For all unconsciously 
the wretched victims of Batak had done more for 
their country by their pitiful death than if they had 
perished sword in hand on the field. For from this 
moment Bulgaria, hitherto well-nigh forgotten by 
Western Europe, became a household word, and its 

!5 



210 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

liberation became the object of practical statesmen 
no less than philanthropists. Russia, above all, had 
been provided with an excellent handle against the 
Sultan, and could go to war with the cause of the 
Balkan Christians as a watchword. 

In the war itself the Bulgarians played a much 
less important part than the Roumanians. Bulgaria, 
disorganised by nearly five centuries of Turkish rule, 
which had sapped the martial spirit of the people, could 
do little but provide a theatre for the war. It was upon 
Bulgarian soil that the chief struggle took place, and 
the siege of Plevna and the occupation of the Shipka 
Pass attracted the eyes of the whole world to this 
remote corner of the map of Europe. To the best of 
their abilities the peasants helped the Russian forces ; 
wherever the Czar's legions went the natives welcomed 
them, not because they wished to exchange the 
Turkish for the Muscovite domination, but because 
they regarded them as instruments for the liberation 
of the country. Their local knowledge was placed 
at the disposal of the invaders, Bulgarian guides 
directed the Russian army through the mazes of the 
mountains, Bulgarian boys carried water to the 
Russian soldiers in battle at the risk of their lives. 
Volunteer corps were formed to fight by the side of 
the Russian and Roumanian regulars, five thousand 
Bulgarians accompanied General Gourko in his opera- 
tions in the Balkans, and won the praise of their allies 
by their gallant defence of the Shipka Pass, and their 
conspicuous bravery at Eski Zagora, where four-fifths 
of the Bulgarian combatants were left dead upon the 
field. But lack of military training, the terror inspired 



THE TREATY OF SAN STEFAXO. 211 

by the massacres of the previous year, and the fear of 
reprisals in case the war went against their liberators, 
hindered them from displaying those high military 
qualities which eight years later won them renown at 
Slivnitza. One grievous blot marred their struggle 
for freedom. On the approach of the Russians the 
maddened peasantry gave way to its thirst for revenge. 
Mindful of the atrocities to which their countrymen 
had been subjected by the Bashi-Bazouks, the Bul- 
garians descended from the mountains whither they 
had fled, and slew the Turks without mercy. 

The Treaty of San Stefano, which the conquerors 
endeavoured to impose upon the conquered, would have 
created a " Big Bulgaria " almost beyond the dreams 
of the most fervent patriots. In a single moment, 
from the position of a Turkish province the country 
would have risen to the rank of an independent state 
with boundaries almost as extended as those of the 
Empire under Simeon or Samuel. The Bulgaria of 
the San Stefano Treaty would have cut the Euro- 
pean territories of Turkey in two, and thus effectually 
dismembered the Ottoman Empire. In addition to 
a coast line on the Black Sea extending a little farther 
north, and considerably farther south than that which 
she at present possesses, Bulgaria would have had a 
frontage on the JEgean. But it was in Macedonia, 
the " land for which Samuel and Basil had once 
striven so stoutly," that she would have acquired the 
greatest accession of territory. The lakes of Ochrida 
and Prespa, ancient homes of her Czars, would 
have once more owned her sway ; the Vardar and 
the Struma would have been from source to mouth 



212 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

Bulgarian streams. No wonder that Bulgarian eyes 
still look with longing upon the " promised land." 
Prince x^lexander told a friend of the writer, who had 
remarked that Sofia was not sufficiently central to be 
the capital of Bulgaria, that the annexation of 
Macedonia would make it the heart of the country. 
Prince Ferdinand is known to cherish similar aspira- 
tions, and nowhere was the Macedonian agitation 
of last year more popular than in Sofia. The 
Bulgarians can never forget that a large part of the 
Macedonian population speaks the same language 
and belongs to the same race as themselves. But 
Greece and Servia would have been indignant at the 
loss of a country which contains many of their own 
fellow-countrymen as well. Over this big Bulgaria 
a Christian government was to be appointed, and a 
complete union was decreed between North Bulgaria 
and the part south of the Balkans, to which the 
diplomatic title of " Eastern Roumelia " had been 
given. But the Western Powers, and more especi- 
ally England, anticipated that the new and autono- 
mous state thus created by the Czar would become 
a mere appanage of the Russian Crown. It must be 
confessed that such a prospect seemed at that time 
only too probable, for no one suspected the sturdy 
independence of the emancipated Bulgarians, or 
expected the subsequent treatment by which their 
liberators alienated their affections. The history of 
Roumania, indeed, might have proved that any 
diplomatic attempt to sever North and South Bul- 
garia from one another would be as futile as the 
similar scheme for the separation of the two. 



THE TREATY OE BERLIN. 213 

Danubian principalities twenty years earlier. But 
the dominant sentiment was the fear that Bulgaria 
would be a Russian outpost, a convenient resting- 
place on the way from St. Petersburg to Constanti- 
nople. So the Treaty of San Stefano was torn up, 
and that of Berlin substituted in its place. 

By this memorable' instrument, upon which the 
international position of the country still depends, 
Bulgaria was created an " autonomous and tributary 
principality under the suzerainty of His Imperial 
Majesty the Sultan " ; its limits were defined to be 
the Balkans on the south, Eastern Roumelia being 
thus excluded from it, the Danube on the north, the 
Black Sea from just south of Mangalia to near Cape 
Emineh on the east, and Servia on the west, from 
the point where the river Timok joins the Danube to 
the place where the two principalities and Macedonia 
meet. Thus not only were the Bulgarians in 
Eastern Roumelia and Macedonia separated from 
their kinsmen in the new principality, but the Bul- 
garian-speaking district of Pirot was handed over to 
Servia. Here were the germs of future troubles, and 
the wording of the famous article which regulated 
the election of the Prince, has since caused great 
inconvenience. The article provided that the Prince 
should be " freely elected by the population, and 
confirmed by the Sublime Porte, with the assent of 
the Powers. No member of the reigning dynasties 
of the great European Powers may be elected Prince." 
The words " with the assent of the Powers " have 
been interpreted to mean that if one of the signatory 
Powers object, no valid election can be made. Thus, 



214 BULGARIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

after a reign of nine years as Prince de facto, the 
present ruler of Bulgaria has only just become Prince 
dejure. The Treaty then went on to proclaim com- 
plete civil and religious liberty in the new principality, 
provided for the payment of an annual tribute to the 
Porte, and made Bulgaria responsible for a portion of 
the Ottoman debt. Temporary arrangements were 
drawn up for the administration of the country 
under an Imperial Russian Commissary aided by a 
similar Turkish official and the consuls of the other 
Powers for nine months, the period which was fixed 
for the occupation of both Bulgaria and Eastern 
Roumelia by a Russian army of fifty thousand men. 
As for the latter district it was to " remain under the 
direct political and military authority " of the Sultan, 
and to be administered by " a Christian Governor- 
General, nominated by the Sublime Porte with the 
assent of the Powers for a term of five years." But 
facts were soon to prove stronger than the artificial 
arrangements of diplomacy. 

Thus, after nearly five centuries of Turkish bond- 
age, Bufgaria was once more free. For the third 
time in her long history she was a practically inde- 
pendent state. More fortunate than Servia and 
Montenegro, she had not had to fight for her freedom 
but owed it to the swords, and perhaps no less to the 
pens, of foreigners. It remained for her to emanci- 
pate herself from the tutelage of Russia and bid her 
brothers beyond the Balkans join her in one united 
Bulgarian principality. 



VI. 



THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

(1878— 1886.) 

BULGARIA, to use a phrase of Prince Bismarck, 
had thus been " put in the saddle," but she had not 
yet " learnt to ride." Under the long rule of the 
Turks there had been no opportunity for acquiring 
the elements of political education. The old Bul- 
garian Empire had been based upon serfdom, and 
maintained by an aristocracy. But the Bulgarian 
state which suddenly came into existence in 1878, 
was essentially democratic. Its people were mainly 
peasants with little knowledge of the art of govern- 
ment. Naturally the Russians were the practical 
rulers of the country. Prince Dondukoff-Korsakoff 
the Imperial Commissary, during the interregnum 
which intervened between the Berlin Treaty and the 
election of the first Prince of Bulgaria, made progresses 
through the land just as if it were a Russian province. 
All the administrative posts were filled by Russians, 
and no care was taken to spare the feelings of the 
natives. Of all races in the Peninsula, the Bulgarians 

215 



2l6 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

are the most suspicious of foreigners, and the most 
economical. Yet, the Russian Government not only 
monopolised every office in the principality, but sent 
as officials to Bulgaria men who had proved either 
failures or firebrands wherever they had been em- 
ployed, and who spent money — the peasants' money 
— right and left. Prince Dondukoff was personally 
popular, and he began his career when all the 
memories of the Turkish captivity and the Russian 
liberation were fresh in the minds of the people. 
But the Bulgarians are practical persons with whom 
gratitude is chiefly a sense of favours to come. 
When the first flush of excitement was over many of 
them began to doubt whether they had not exchanged 
the rule of King Log for that of King Stork. During 
the first two years of its independence Bulgaria was 
materially less prosperous than in the four fat years 
of Midhat. 

In order to make Russia's hold upon the country 
doubly secure, Prince Dondukoff drew up a constitu- 
tion, which might have been framed by a pupil of 
Machiavfelli. A more inconsistent document was 
never devised by a statesman, but there was a method 
in its author's inconsistency. The Commissary had 
to plan an elaborate system of checks and balances. 
If the Prince of Bulgaria, when elected, should prove 
a willing tool of Russia, that was an excellent reason 
for granting him almost autocratic power over his 
people ; but, on the other hand, he might become 
refractory, therefore his people must be provided with 
the means of checkmating him. In either event 
Russia would rule, whether Prince or people governed, 



•/•///•: /;t>/j;.iA'/iv CdtfSflTOTIOtf. 217 

and a constitution at once very autocratic and very 
democratic was accordingly created to suit either 
emergency. The calculations of the wily constitution- 
monger were, however, vitiated by one defect : he 
never considered the possibility of Prince and people 
both uniting against Russia. Yet that was what 
actually came to pass, thanks to the tactless conduct 
of the Russian officials. 

An Assembly of Notables, in accordance with the 
provisions of the Berlin Treaty, met at Trnovo early 
in 1879 anc l passed the Constitution. Of the two 
hundred and thirteen Bulgarians, mostly peasants, 
whose signatures attested this curious instrument few 
had any conception of its meaning. Except to those 
who had travelled in the West of Europe, parlia- 
mentary institutions were a profound mystery. Yet, 
without any previous training, they were suddenly 
presented with a system of representation, outwardly 
far more democratic than that of England or America. 
The Parliament, or ordinary Sobmnje, was to consist 
of a single chamber, elected by manhood suffrage, to 
which any citizen of thirty years of age, who could 
read and write, was eligible. Payment of members 
and equal electoral districts are both " points " in this 
Bulgarian charter. On the other hand, the ministers 
are absolutely independent of the chamber. They 
are nominated by, and responsible to, the Prince; no 
parliamentary majority can upset them ; they are not 
necessarily members of Parliament. As head of the 
army, the Prince can dismiss and appoint every 
officer; he may dissolve the Sobranje when he chooses, 
and if the country should decide against him, he need 



2lS THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

not give way. Care was taken by the framer of the 
constitution that there should be no way out of a 
deadlock, which might arise between Prince and 
Parliament. The princely dignity was made here- 
ditary in the male line, and the civil list fixed at 
^"24,000. Absolute freedom of the press was guaran- 
teed, and Bulgarian journalists avail themselves 
of it to the utmost. Freedom of election exists in 
theory alone, for Bulgarian statesmen are adepts at 
the art of " managing " voters, and the number of 
votes recorded often bears no proportion to the actual 
number of voters. A Ministry, by means of its hold 
upon the local authorities, can generally contrive to 
keep in power, and the peasant statesmen have learnt 
the cynical maxim of Prince Dondukoff himself : "Les 
constitutions, c'est comme les jolies femmes, elles ne 
demandent qu'a itre violees ! " Conscription and ele- 
mentary education are compulsory, and the demo- 
cratic spirit of the people was gratified by the 
prohibition of all titles of nobility. 

Although Bulgaria has no second chamber, the 
constitution provided for the creation of a Grand 
Sobranje, which meets, not at Sofia, like the ordinary 
Parliament, but at Trnovo, to consider the election of 
a Prince, the nomination of Regents, the extension of 
territory, or the revision of the Constitution. This 
body is elected by the same constituencies as the 
other, but consists of twice as many members, and 
ceases to exist as soon as the specific business for 
which it was chosen has been discharged. Thus 
Bulgaria, a state without statesmen, a nation devoid 
of a governing class, without experience, without 



THE NEW PRINCE. 210 

traditions, was equipped in a few months with a 
brand-new paper constitution. It is highly creditable 
to the common-sense of the people, that the machinery 
of government has worked so well. 

The constituent assembly, having passed the con- 
stitution, proceeded to the election of a Prince. The 
choice of the deputies fell upon Prince Alexander of 
Battenberg, son of Prince Alexander of Hesse, and, 
as nephew of the Czar Alexander II., presumably a 
person acceptable to the Russian Government. The 
first Prince of Bulgaria was, at the time of his elec- 
tion, twenty-two years of age, and living in the humble 
quarters of a Prussian officer at Potsdam. It is said 
that he hesitated at first to accept the doubtful honour 
thrust upon him ; but a throne was too tempting to 
be refused. He consulted Prince Bismarck, who, 
thirteen years earlier, had advised another German 
Prince to accept a Balkan throne, and received a reply 
that at any rate a reign in Bulgaria would be a " plea- 
sant reminiscence." Prince Alexander made a pre- 
liminary tour of the European Courts, and, amidst 
great enthusiasm took the oath to the constitution at 
Trnovo on the 9th of July. A week later the Russian 
army of occupation evacuated Bulgaria. 

The first Prince of Bulgaria is one of the most 
romantic figures in the history of our time. His career 
borders on the marvellous, his character had some- 
thing of the heroic about it. His frank and open 
bearing, his social charms, and his military prowess 
on behalf of his adopted country on the field of 
Slivnitza, endeared him to the cold hearts of a people 
which is seldom enthusiastic. He was essentially a 



220 THE UNI OX UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

soldier, and was the best possible ruler of a country 
like Bulgaria in time of war. But he was lamentably 
deficient in the arts of a statesman. A diplomatist, 
who knew him intimately, has described to the writer 
the " obstinacy " and " singular incapacity " which he 
showed in matters of business, while he committed 
indiscretions of speech which proved that he had, like 
some other sovereigns, never mastered that aphorism 
of Metternich, that "a monarch should not talk." He 
had a singular knack of quarrelling with his advisers, 
which once drew down upon him a sharp rebuke from 
the Czar. He was not a great administrator or a 
clever politician ; but if he had had an old and ex- 
perienced statesman to guide him, he might have 
succeeded. Unfortunately, he estranged first the 
Liberals, who included all the ablest men in Bulgaria, 
and then the Russians, and when the latter desired 
his fall, he fell. For the first two years of his reign, 
down to the death of the Czar Alexander II. in 1881, 
his position was comparatively easy. His Imperial 
patron had a personal liking for him, and fear of their 
sovereign's displeasure checked the arrogance of the 
Russian officers who were sent to Bulgaria. Having 
ascended the throne as a Russian nominee, the Prince 
naturally chose his early advisers from the Conserva- 
tive, or Russophil party, and openly described the 
Liberal or national party as " Nihilists." But as the 
first Bulgarian Parliament was elected without Govern- 
ment pressure, the Liberals obtained an enormous 
majority, and a deadlock at once ensued. The Prince 
gave way, and Dragan Zankoff, the Liberal leader, 
and at that period Russia's principal antagonist, became 



THE COUP DETAT. 221 

Prime Minister. This man has in his time played 
many parts ; he has professed all political and most 
theological creeds ; he has been alternately the sworn 
foe and the salaried agent of Russia, and his one guid- 
ing principle has been his own advancement. When 
he fell from office in 1880, he made a remark, which 
has become historical, that he wanted " neither 
Russia's honey nor her sting." Prince Alexander 
had been convinced by this brief experience of consti- 
tutional government, that he could not work with his 
Parliament, x^ccordingly, on the 27th of April, 1881, 
he executed a coup d'etat, suspended the Constitution, 
made a Russian General Ernroth his Premier, and 
demanded irresponsible power for seven years, 
threatening to resign unless he obtained it. A packed 
Assembly granted him his demands, and in July the 
Prince, under the auspices of Russia, was absolute 
master of the country. Two more Russian generals 
were sent from St. Petersburg to " uphold his prestige," 
and representative institutions were only preserved 
by " a small Assembly," which had no function save 
that of voting the budget. 

But the Prince soon found that he was not master 
in his own house. His Russian ministers plainly 
told him that they took their orders from the Czar, 
and Alexander III. had the greatest dislike for his 
cousin. Bulgaria after the coup d'etat was as much a 
province of Russia as if she had been annexed to the 
country. The President of the Council, the Minister 
of War, the Chief of Police, the Governor of Sofia, 
and three hundred superior officers in the army were 
all Russians, The Russian Agent, M. Hitrovo, 



222 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

cleverly worked upon the national dread of Austria, 
and tried to play the part of a British political Resi- 
dent at the court of an Indian prince. But both 
Prince and people grew restive under this alien bond- 
age. The native officers became impatient of Russian 
control in the army ; the sovereign chafed under the 
impertinences of his Russian ministers. The Prince 
restored the Constitution in 1883, his Russian advisers 
resigned, and the Liberals, under Zankoff, ruled in 
their stead. The discovery of a plot to kidnap the 
Prince widened the breach with Russia. In the dead 
of night, Generals Soboleff and Kaulbars arrived at 
the Palace and demanded an audience of the sove- 
reign. The sentry refused admittance ; and, when they 
attempted to force it, drew his sword and threatened to 
cut them down. A search revealed the presence of a 
carriage at the gates, in which the Prince was to have 
been privily conveyed to the Danube. Proclamations, 
announcing Alexander's expulsion and the formation 
of a provisional government under the two leading 
conspirators, proved conclusively the complicity of 
Russia. For the moment, however, the plot had 
failed. 

Meanwhile, in Eastern Roumelia, the bitter disap- 
pointment caused by the separation of the two Bul- 
garias in the Treaty of Berlin, had increased. The 
Bulgarian, Aleko Pasha, who had been appointed first 
Governor-General after the departure of the Russians 
in 1879, had looked with some favour upon the 
national aspirations of the people, and so far incurred 
the hostility of the Russian party, that he was super- 
seded by Gavril Pasha, a Slav, in 1884. Early in the 



THE PHILIPPOPOLIS REVOLUTION. 223 

reign of Prince Alexander, deputations from Eastern 
Roumelia had come to Sofia, begging for a union, and 
offering to support it by force of arms. In the summer 
of 1885 the Liberals of Eastern Roumelia felt that 
now was the moment to strike the blow. On the 
morning of September 18th, as Gavril Pasha was 
quietly sipping his coffee in the Konak at Philippopolis, 
Major Nikolajeff and several officers entered his 
room and informed him that he was their prisoner. 
The Pasha yielded to superior force, and, under the 
guard of a schoolmistress with a sword in her hand, 
was driven round the town amidst the jeers of his late 
subjects. The army fraternised with the insurgents, 
and without a drop of blood the capital of Eastern 
Roumelia was theirs. Nikolajeff at once proclaimed 
the union of the two Bulgarias under Prince Alexander. 
The Prince hesitated to accept the honour. He con- 
sulted Stambuloff, at that time Speaker of the Sobranje, 
who pointedly told him that he stood at the cross- 
roads of his career. " The one road," he said, " leads 
to Philippopolis, and as far further as God may lead, 
the other to the Danube and Darmstadt." Alexander 
chose the former, and on' September 20th issued a 
proclamation as " Prince of North and South Bul- 
garia." He soothed the feelings of his Mussulman 
subjects by visiting the chief mosque at Philippopolis, 
and the care, which he had always taken to prevent 
outrages against Mahommedans in Bulgaria, gained 
him the confidence of their co-religionists in Eastern 
Roumelia. 

But every one expected international complica- 
tions. It seemed incredible that Turkey would ac- 



224 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

quiesce in the Union without a struggle ; it was 
known that the aggrandisement of Bulgaria would 
excite the wildest jealousies of both Greeks and 
Serbs. But the Sultan, from fear of assassination, 
dared not strip his capital of the necessary troops ; 
Greece was kept in order by a naval demonstration 
of the Powers, and Servia alone entered the field. 
At the Conferences, which were held at Constanti- 
nople, Sir William White, the British Ambassador, 
strongly supported the Bulgarian cause, while the 
Russians, who seven years earlier had advocated the 
Union of the two Bulgarias at San Stefano, now 
counselled the Sultan to occupy Eastern Roumelia 
by force. Thus England and Russia had exchanged 
parts in the " Great " Bulgarian drama. To mark 
yet more clearly his displeasure at what he regarded 
as " ingratitude," the Czar struck Prince Alexander's 
name out of the Russian army list, and recalled every 
Russian officer from Bulgaria. But the blow recoiled 
on its author. From that instant Prince Alexander 
became in the eyes of his people a national hero, 
whom* they would follow to the death. Then for the 
first time was heard the ominous phrase, " We would 
rather be Turkish than Russian." 

While Bulgaria was thus suddenly thrown upon 
her own resources, Servia suddenly declared war. 
About a year before the Union there had been 
boundary disputes with Servia, which had been 
jealous of Bulgaria ever since the Berlin Treaty. 
King Milan thought the moment favourable for that 
territorial extension which his people desired. His 
neighbours had just seen their army denuded of its 






THE SERVIAN WAR. 225 

Russian officers ; their Prince was under the ban of 
the Powers ; their frontier was open to invasion. 
There could, he thought — and most onlookers 
thought too — be only one result of a war under- 
taken under such conditions. So, on November 13, 
1885, his Premier, M. Garashinine, telegraphed to 
Sofia that hostilities would begin next morning. 
The people of Belgrade toasted their sovereign as 
" King of Servia and Macedonia," and the troops 
invoked the name of Stephen Dusan as they marched 
through the streets. But the statesmen of Servia 
had not reckoned with the enthusiasm of their adver- 
saries. Prince Alexander again reaped the reward of 
his toleration towards his Mussulman subjects, for six 
thousand of them at once voluntered for the war. 
The Bulgarians of Macedonia formed a " brigand 
brigade " of three thousand more, and in a few days 
the Prince found himself at the head of ninety thou- 
sand men. At the first intelligence of the war he 
had hurried back from Philippopolis to Sofia, and the 
evening of the 16th found his headquarters estab- 
lished in a wretched little khan at Slivnitza, a town 
on the direct route from Servia to Sofia. 

The three days' battle of Slivnitza revealed the 
Bulgarians to Europe in a new light. The courage 
of the Prince, who exposed himself to the enemy's 
fire with the most reckless disregard of danger, in- 
spired his soldiers to the utmost efforts. Early on 
the morning of the third day a rumour reached head- 
quarters that the enemy was marching by the south 
on Sofia, and a panic broke out in the capital. The 
Russophil party, under Zankoff, was preparing for a 

16 



226 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

'Provisional Government," the national exchequer 
had been sent for safety to Plevna, when the news 
came that the alarm was false. At Slivnitza the 
Bulgarians had triumphed, everywhere the Serbs had 
been driven back. King Milan sent a letter, asking 
for an armistice, which was refused, and the victors 
crossed the frontier and occupied Pirot. Belgrade 
seemed in danger, for its defenders had only one 
round of ammunition left ; but Count Khevenhiiller, 
the Austrian Minister to Servia, arrived in the Bul- 
garian headquarters, and told Prince Alexander that, 
if he advanced further, Austria would join Servia in 
resisting his march. The Prince yielded to superior 
force, and in March, 1886, a treaty of peace was 
signed at Bucharest. Servia did not cede a single 
yard of territory ; she did not even pay a war in- 
demnity, which ought, according to the Bulgarian 
statesmen, to have consisted of two million pigs, the 
commodity of which the Serbs had most to spare. 
But if Bulgaria had not gained land or cash from 
Servia, the Union with Eastern Roumelia was se- 
cured -by the war. The Sultan made a treaty with 
Prince Alexander early in 1886, and named him 
Governor-General of the country, which was hence- 
forth known as South Bulgaria. The war had not 
been in vain ; Slivnitza was found by the politicians 
to have its literal meaning of " that which unites " ; 
for the blood of the soldiers who died there cemented 
the union of the two Bulgarias. 

Prince Alexander had driven back the Serbs, and 
returned in triumph to his capital as the " hero of 
Slivnitza " ; but the vengeance of Russia dogged his 



PLOT AGAINST THE PRINCE. 227 

footsteps. Baffled by his success, enraged at his 
growing spirit of independence, the Russian agents in 
Bulgaria were keener than ever to overthrow him. 
Peace had scarcely been signed, when a conspiracy 
was discovered at Bourgas to carry off, or, if neces- 
sary, kill, the Prince. Foiled in this second attempt 
against his person, the Russophil party used every 
means to poison public opinion against him. There 
were officers in the army, like Bendereff and Dimit- 
rieff, who were ready to avenge real or imaginary 
slights received from their sovereign. The rumour 
that the Serbs were about to renew hostilities had the 
double effect of stripping the capital of loyal troops 
and of causing much discontent among the peaceful 
and thrifty Bulgarians. Russophil prints described 
the Prince as a monster of vice, a creature who 
fattened upon the hard-won earnings of the poor. A 
regiment upon which the conspirators could rely was 
quietly marched into Sofia, and all was ready for the 
final blow. As Bendereff was acting Minister for 
War, and Grueff head of the Military Academy, the 
gang held all the trump cards. To crown all, the 
Church, in the person of the Metropolitan, Clement, 
a sworn friend of Russia and a born intriguer, pro- 
nounced its blessing on the enterprise. 

At two in the morning of the 21st of August, 1886, 
the Prince was aroused from his slumbers by one of 
his guards, who rushed into his bedroom, thrust a 
revolver into his hand, and told him that the palace 
was surrounded by a band of conspirators. Escape 
was hopeless, repeated volleys and cries of Dolu, dolu ! 
" Down with him, down with him ! " rent the ajr. 



228 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 



Hurrying on his clothes, the Prince went into the hall, 
where a crowd of officers, led by Major Grueff, called 
on him to " abdicate," emphasing their demands by 
pointing their loaded pistols at his head. Captain 
Dimitrieff tore a page out of the visitors' book, which 
lay in the hall, and sat down to draw up the deed of 
abdication. Drink and excitement prevented him 
from scrawling more than a few unintelligible words 
on the paper, and a young cadet took the pen from 




ROMAN RELIEF AT MADARA. 



him and finished the document. Grueff, presenting 
his revolver full in the Prince's face, cried out, "Sign, 
or I'll shoot ! " To resist would have been fatal ; the 
Prince wrote the words in German, " God protect 
Bulgaria — Alexander," and the deed was done. 

From the Palace the conspirators took him to the 
War Office, where every humiliation was put upon 
him. Bendereff, with a terrible oath, asked him why 
he had not made him a major ; Dimitrieff grinned, 



THE PRINCE KIDNAPPED. 22Q 

as he munched an apple in his sovereign's face. 
Grueff alone felt some pangs of conscience ; for when 
the Prince said reproachfully, " So you are also with 
them," he turned away and made no reply. At five 
in the morning the captive was driven, with an armed 
escort of military cadets, to the monastery of Etropol, 
in the mountains, about seventeen miles from Sofia. 
After a night spent in one of the cells, the Prince was 
conducted to the Danube, where his yacht was wait- 
ing. At the last moment, a chance of escape was 
offered him by the captain of an Austrian tug, which 
was lying alongside the yacht with full steam up. 
But the Prince's guards were too much on the alert 
for their prisoner to evade them. He was conveyed 
on board the yacht, and on the morning of the 23rd 
landed on Russian soil. 

Meanwhile, consternation prevailed among the 
loyal Bulgarians. The Metropolitan Clement and 
the Russian Agent received the fulsome adoration of 
Zankoff and his partisans at the Russian- Agency, and 
a new Ministry was formed, which assured the people 
by a proclamation that Bulgaria might count upon 
the protection of the Czar. But it had scarcely been 
launched, when a counter proclamation, signed by 
Stambuloff, as Speaker of the Sobranje, and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Mutkuroff, who was in command at 
Philippopolis, declared Clement and his colleagues to 
be outlaws, and appealed to the Bulgarians to defend 
the throne. It was at once clear that the country 
was with the loyalists. Stambuloff had no difficulty 
in dissolving the Provisional Government ; and he 
and two other persons constituted themselves a 



230 THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 

Regency until the Prince could be found. To dis- 
cover the vanished sovereign was no easy matter ; 
but after telegraphing all over Europe, it was ascer- 
tained that the Russian authorities had set him at 
liberty at Lemberg. Stambuloff at once telegraphed 
to him to return and resume his sway. The Prince 
accepted the offer, and, before a Russian Commis- 
sioner could forestall him, he had landed once more 
in Bulgaria. 

The conspiracy, conceived and carried out on 
almost exactly similar lines to the Roumania mutiny 
against Prince Couza in 1866, had succeeded at first, 
only to be frustrated by the promptitude of the man 
who was for the next eight years to play the leading 
part in Balkan politics. The most extraordinary series 
of accidents had enabled the conspirators to execute 
their plans ; a letter, which he had neglected, had 
warned the Prince of his fate, and at the last moment 
the yacht, which bore him a prisoner down the 
Danube, narrowly escaped the Bulgarian and Rou- 
manian fire from the opposite banks. Thanks chiefly 
to Stambuloff, he had regained his crown. Thanks 
to his own weakness, he now voluntarily renounced 
it. 

Among those who had assembled to meet the 
Prince on his landing at Rustchuk was M. Shatokhin, 
the Russian Consul. Without consulting his friends 
Prince Alexander despatched to the Czar, at this 
man's suggestion, a telegram, in which he thanked 
that monarch for sending a Russian High Commis- 
sioner to Bulgaria, and for the recognition which his 
Majesty's representative at Rustchuk had shown him. 



THE PRINCE ABDICATES. 23 1 

The message ended with the servile phrase, " Russia 
gave me my crown ; I am ready to return it into the 
hands of her sovereign." This telegram was the 
Prince's ruin. The Czar at once replied, " Cannot 
approve your return to Bulgaria. I shall refrain from 
all interference with the sad state to which Bulgaria 
has been brought as long as you remain there." The 
Prince saw that the game was up ; by one foolish 
move he had lost, and had no furthur choice but to 
go. In vain Stambuloff urged him to remain, and, 
when arguments failed, threatened to keep him on 
the throne against his will. At last it was agreed 
that he should go, provided that Russia permitted 
the Bulgarians to elect some one in his stead. The 
Russian Agent consented. On September 7th Prince 
Alexander publicly announced his abdication, and 
appointed Stambuloff, Mutkuroff, and Karaveloff as 
Regents. Next day, sadly and sorrowfully the 
Prince bade farewell to Bulgaria for ever. He sum- 
moned the chief men of Sofia to the palace, told them 
how the welfare of his adopted country had been his 
sole desire, and confessed that he had failed because 
of the great opposition which he had met. And then 
he set out with Stambuloff, amidst the tears of his 
subjects, sorry to leave them, yet glad to be freed 
from the responsibilities of a Balkan throne. 

His memory lived, and still lives after his death, 
among the people of his adoption. Under the name 
of Count Hartenau, happily yet humbly married, he 
tried to bury the prince in the simple Austrian 
officer. But long after his departure there were men 
in Bulgaria who hoped for his return. His faults — 



23- 



THE UNION UNDER PRINCE ALEXANDER. 



and they were many — were forgotten ; it was re- 
membered that in seven brief years he had created 
an army, led a nation to victory, and united the two 
Bulgarias together. And when he died in 1893, 
many a peasant in his humble cottage mourned for 
the soldier prince, the " hero of Slivnitza." 




VII. 



PRINCE FERDINAND. 



(1887— 1896.) 



The abdication of Prince Alexander made it desir- 
able to select a suitable candidate for the vacant 
throne without delay, in order that law and order 
might be restored as soon as possible. With the 
avowed object of " assisting " the Bulgarians in their 
difficulties, the Czar sent them Major-General Kaul- 
bars, Russian military attache at Vienna and brother 
of the General Kaulbars who had acted as Bulgarian 
war minister five years before. To the action of this 
man more than to any other cause may be attributed 
the antipathy to Russia which has grown up in the 
country which she helped to liberate. For General 
Kaulbars, as a Bulgarian statesman once said, " came 
with a knout in his hand." His methods were un- 
paralleled in the history of diplomacy. Instead of 
expressing his views in official interviews with the 
usual diplomatic forms, he took the mob into his 
confidence and stumped the country as the election 
agent of the Czar. His "twelve commandments" 

233 



234 PkiNCE Ferdinand. 

to the Russian consuls and vice-consuls in Bulgaria 
aroused the utmost indignation. His great desire 
was to postpone the elections to the Grand Sobranje, 
which were prescribed by the constitution to take 
place within a month, in order that the new prince 
might be chosen at once. As the regents insisted 
on holding these elections, he started on an electoral 
tour through the towns and villages of Bulgaria. His 
speeches were interrupted by cries and groans ; when 
he discoursed on what he was pleased to call his " three 
points " — the raising of the prevailing state of siege, 
the liberation of the officers involved in the late con- 
spiracy, and the postponement of the elections — he 
was greeted with shouts of " Impossible." At two 
places alone did he succeed in persuading the electors 
to abstain from voting. Stambuloff and the national 
party obtained an immense majority, and General 
Kaulbars had to fall back upon the allegation that 
the elections were invalid, a convenient theory, which 
his agents endeavoured to substantiate by their 
violence and the riots, which they incited. A second 
plot at Bourgas and the presence of two Russian 
men-of-war at Varna failed to frighten the Bulgarians 
into submission, and finally, disgusted and disap- 
pointed, General Kaulbars and all the Russian con- 
sular agents shook the dust of Bulgaria off their feet 
and returned to their own country. 

The Grand Sobranje met at Trnovo and elected 
Prince Waldemar of Denmark, brother of the Princess 
of Wales and the Dowager Empress of Russia, as 
Prince Alexander's successor. It was thought that 
the Czar would approve of so near a kinsman ; but 



ELECTION OF PRINCE FERDINAND. 235 

he would not consent, so Prince Walclemar declined 
the proffered crown. To the candidature of the 
Prince of Mingrelia, a Caucasian potentate, who was 
put forward by Turkey and was considered to be 
acceptable to Russia, the Bulgarians would not listen. 
The best of all choices would have been the King 
of Roumania, to whom the throne was actually 
offered. Had King Carol accepted, he might have 
formed the strongest of all Balkan states, which 
would have realised the ancient idea of a " Wallacho- 
Bulgarian Empire," and might have even proved to 
be the " nucleus of a Balkan confederation." But 
the King was afraid of arousing the jealousy of the 
Powers, and once more the welfare of the Peninsula 
was sacrificed to the exigencies of its great neighbours. 
Meanwhile, the position of the Regents was becom- 
ing dangerous ; plot succeeded plot in rapid succes- 
sion, Russia had been mortally offended, and it was 
imperative that a prince should be found. Three 
delegates were accordingly sent out on a tour of 
inspection among the royal cadets of Europe. One 
evening a member of the deputation was drinking 
his glass of beer at Ronacher's Circus in Vienna, 
when a friend introduced him to a gentleman, who 
professed to know the very man for the post. The 
delighted delegate told his colleagues, and next day 
all three waited upon Prince Ferdinand of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha, and offered him the throne. In order 
to meet the prince's objections, the Grand Sobranje 
promptly elected him. At first, he made his accept- 
ance conditional on the approval of the Powers. But 
his scruples were overcome, and on August 14, 1887, 



236 PRINCE FERDINAND. 

he took the oath before the Grand Sobranje in the 
ancient capital of the Bulgarian Czars, to whom he 
alluded in his opening proclamation. 

At the time of his accession Prince Ferdinand was 
twenty-six years of age. The younger son of a dis- 
tinguished family, his father was a nobleman possess- 
ing large estates in Austria, his mother, Princess 
Clementine, was the granddaughter of King Louis 
Philippe. Well connected and with ample means, he 
had two indispensable qualifications for the throne. 
But he was wholly ignorant of the language and 
customs of his subjects, to whom he came, like 
Alexander, as a foreigner, but without Alexander's 
Russian introductions and dashing manners. Acci- 
dent made Prince Ferdinand a sovereign, nature 
intended him for a student. He is never so happy 
as when rambling through the mountains in search 
of choice botanical specimens, and his tastes are not 
those of soldiers and sportsmen. The Bulgarians, as 
he has himself admitted, are not enthusiastic Royalists. 
They have adopted monarchical principles, because 
that was the only means of making their indepen- 
dence acceptable to the Powers. No one could, 
therefore, have expected them to display intense 
loyalty to a young sovereign, of whom few of them 
had ever heard, and who seemed deficient in those 
qualities which had endeared Alexander to the hearts 
of his people. 

The Regents resigned upon Prince Ferdinand's 
accession, and retired into private life. But for M. 
Stambuloff, to whom more than any other man 
Bulgaria owed the maintenance of her independence 



STAMBULOFF. 2^J 

and Prince Ferdinand his throne, there was little rest. 
On September i, 1887, the Prince requested him to 
accept the post of Prime Minister, which he occupied 
without intermission till his fall on the last day of 
May, 1894. For the greater portion of these seven 
years, the history of Bulgaria is little else but the 
story of his career. 

Stepan Stambuloff was undoubtedly the ablest 
statesman whom the Balkan states have produced 
since their regeneration. Born at Trnovo in 1854, 
the son of an innkeeper, this remarkable man had 
acquired a European reputation at an age when 
most budding British premiers have been under- 
secretaries at the most. But youth is too common 
an attribute of Bulgarian politicians to attract any 
special notice. What gained Stambuloff the respect 
and admiration of foreign nations was the extra- 
ordinary skill and firmness which he displayed under 
most trying circumstances. He was always counted 
as one of the two or three really " strong men " of 
Europe. His friends called him the " Bulgarian Bis- 
marck " ; even hostile critics admitted that he was 
un geant dans un entresol. No doubt he had great 
faults. He believed that the end justified the means, 
and never hesitated to employ force if he considered 
it indispensable to the success of his plans. Like 
every other minister who has governed in Bulgaria, 
he manipulated the elections for his own purposes, 
but those purposes were also the nation's ; for he 
was a true patriot, whose whole public life was given 
up to Bulgaria. As a young man, he had been mixed 
up in frequent conspiracies for the emancipation of 



238 PRINCE FERDINAND. 

his fellow-countrymen. Under Prince Alexander, he 
had chiefly devoted his time to his practice as a 
lawyer, but when the country was in danger he came 
forward as its saviour. Arbitrary he undoubtedly 
was, but for sheer ability and force of character he 
stood unrivalled among Balkan statesmen. If he 
had shown more tact towards his sovereign and more 
polish in his dealings with his sovereign's consort, he 
might have kept his place and his life for years. But 
the Bulgarian peasant was strong within him ; he 
was the very opposite of a courtier, while his Prince 
attached an exaggerated amount of importance to 
the pomp and circumstance of royalty. It was in- 
evitable that sooner or later the two men should dis- 
agree, and at the very first the minister thought that 
he could never get on with his master. But as long 
as Prince Ferdinand was a comparative stranger to 
the manners and customs of Bulgaria, there was peace 
between them, for the minister, from his superior 
knowledge, was necessarily supreme. It was only 
when the Prince had begun to feel himself capable 
of judging and acting for himself, that the two fell 
out. Stambuloff. treated the Prince like a puppet, 
and had not the tact to rule his sovereign without 
showing that he ruled. 

The first difficulty which beset the new Prince and 
his minister was the hostile attitude of Russia. By 
the Treaty of Berlin it was necessary that the ruler 
of Bulgaria should be elected by the Grand Sobranje 
with the consent of the Powers. This consent Russia, 
as one of the Powers, refused, basing her refusal upon 
the alleged invalidity of the elections to the Grand 



STAMBULOFF S SUCCESSES. 239 

Sobranje. Bulgaria was, therefore, socially boycotted 
by the Powers. From the Prince's point of view the 
formal recognition of his position was most desirable ; 
but the question was of much less interest to his 
people, who, being practical persons, did not care to 
fight for mere forms when they had obtained the 
solid substance. Indirectly, the non-recognition of 
Prince Ferdinand had this advantage, that there was 
no Russian Agent accredited to his court, and conse- 
quently no Russian agency always at work to under- 
mine his throne. At first Russia did, indeed, protest 
openly, on her own behalf and through the medium 
of the Porte, against the Prince's position, and even 
proposed at one time to eject him and put General 
Ernroth, who had been Minister of War at Sofia in 
1882, as governor in his place. But the friendly 
policy of England towards the young state and the 
firm resolve of the Bulgarian Government to resist 
such a proposal by force deterred Russia from the 
attempt, and from 1888 to the present time she has 
taken no open steps to oust Prince Ferdinand. This 
year he has at last secured recognition. 

Having checkmated the designs of Bulgaria's former 
liberators, Stambuloff proceeded to establish friendly 
relations with his country's ancient master. Since 
the war Turkey had made no attempt to interfere 
with the practical independence of her old province, 
and she was quite ready to meet the Bulgarian 
Premier's overtures. Stambuloff's policy was as suc- 
cessful as it was statesmanlike. Thanks to this good 
understanding with the Sultan, he was able to obtain 
in 1890 Turkish berats for the appointment of two 



240 PRINCE FERDINAND. 

Bulgarian bishops to the sees of Ochrida and Uskub 
in Macedonia, which had been abolished by the Porte 
after the war. This important concession was followed 
four years later by the nomination of two more Bul- 
garian bishops in Macedonia, while the Bulgarian 
schools in that part of the Turkish Empire were 
granted the same rights as the Greek, and forty Bul- 
garian communes were formally recognised. These 
successes were hailed with the greatest enthusiasm in 
Bulgaria, but aroused much jealousy at Athens and 
Belgrade, and were regarded by Europe generally as 
a signal blow to Russia, which had formerly asked on 
behalf of Bulgaria, and been refused a similar favour. 
Stambuloff visited Constantinople and was received 
by the Sultan, and his foreign policy seemed to have 
been fully justified. Bulgaria rose in the estimation 
of Western Europe, and fell more than ever under 
the displeasure of the Czar. 

But it was not to be expected that a country, which 
for so many years had been honeycombed with con- 
spiracies, would become suddenly free from these 
subterranean movements. If Russia had ceased to 
trouble Bulgaria, there were not wanting Russophils, 
who were ready to stir up the people to revolt. The 
Prince had been barely four months on the throne when 
two plots were discovered at Eski Zagra and Bourgas, 
the scene of two former insurrections against his pre- 
decessor. Nabokoff, the author of the Bourgas rising, 
had already been implicated in a similar attempt at 
the same spot. Followed by a band of Montenegrins, 
whom he had collected with the assistance of Zankoff 
at Constantinople, he landed in the harbour, and, after 



THE PANITZA PLOT. 24 1 

a brief encounter with the authorities, was shot by 
the peasants. A much more serious movement was 
crushed in 1890. Major Panitza, the leader of this 
conspiracy, was a well-known officer in the army, 
who had been a friend and fellow-comrade of Prince 
Alexander. Disappointed of his colonelcy and 
annoyed at the failure of a negotiation for the pur- 
chase of rifles by the War Office, in which he was 
pecuniarily interested, he resolved to dethrone Prince 
Ferdinand, as Bendereff had dethroned Prince Alex- 
ander. He found considerable support for his plans, 
and three-fourths of the garrison of Sofia were on his 
side. Stambuloff, who had been informed of Panitza's 
intentions, lost no time in striking. With sardonic 
humour he ordered two officers, whom he knew to be 
Panitza's accomplices, to arrest their leader, and 
ordered a detachment of men, upon whom he could 
rely, to see that they did their work. Panitza was 
arrested and put on his trial by court-martial. 
Confident of the power of Russia to protect him from 
the consequences of acts undertaken, as the documen- 
tary evidence proved, with her approval, he showed 
no fear of the result. But Stambuloff vowed that, at 
all hazards, the sentence of the court should be carried 
out. That sentence was death, and Panitza was shot 
without ceremony as a traitor. 

A year later the Premier himself narrowly escaped 
assassination. One evening, as he was walking home 
with M. Beltcheff, the Minister of Finance from a cafe, 
where the ministers were wont to adjourn after 
Cabinet Councils, a bullet suddenly whistled past 
their ears. With a cry to his companion to " run," 

17 



242 PRINCE FERDINAND. 

Stambuloff set him the example and made for the 
nearest guard-house on the road. Two more shots 
followed, and the cry, " Stambuloff is killed," con- 
vinced him that it was at himself and not at his 
unoffending colleague that they had been aimed. 
Returning with the guards, he found the unfortunate 
Beltcheff lying dead in the public garden, whither he 
had fled, with a shot through his heart. The crime 
aroused the most intense indignation. Stambuloff, 
although he felt from that day that his doom was 
certain, followed up the assassins with relentless zeal. 
Torture was applied to extort a confession from one 
of the prisoners, and the utmost rigour of the law 
was put forth against every suspicious person in the 
country. Terrified by the violence of these measures, 
the conspirators fled from Bulgaria and chose their 
next victim abroad. This was Dr. Vulkovic, the 
Bulgarian agent at Constantinople. While walking 
through the streets he was stabbed in the back by 
one of the same gang, which had been guilty of 
Beltcheff's murder. This double crime made it clear, 
that, though brigandage had been suppressed in 
Bulgaria, the time-honoured Oriental plan of " remov- 
ing " political opponents still prevailed. But the worst 
example of this horrible practice was yet to come. 

The possibility of the Prince's untimely death by 
the hand of an assassin made it all the more desirable 
that he should found a dynasty as soon as possible. 
Accordingly, in the spring of 1893 he married 
Princess Marie Louise of Parma, a member of the 
Bourbon family, gifted with more than the usual 
abilities of her race. Later in the year, the death of 



CONVERSION OF BORIS. 243 

Prince Alexander made Prince Ferdinand indispens- 
able to his people. To the last some had hoped 
against hope for the return of their first ruler, and 
would have no Prince but Alexander. These now 
loyally rallied to his successor. The birth of an heir 
in the following January, who received the name of 
the ancient Czar Boris, gave for the first time a 
national character to the Prince's rule. The greatest 
enthusiasm greeted the event, and the dynasty was 
further strengthened by the birth of a second son, 
Cyril, last winter. Over the head of the tiny Boris 
there has raged, however, a most unseemly theological 
controversy. The Duke of Parma had consented to 
his daughter's marriage on condition that her children 
should be brought up in the Catholic religion. The 
Bulgarian constitution provided that the heir to the 
throne should belong to the Orthodox Greek Church, 
which is the creed of the vast majority of his future 
subjects. Stambuloff, anxious for the marriage, was 
ready even at the risk of his personal popularity, to 
procure the revision of this article of the constitution, 
and Boris was baptised a Catholic. But Prince 
Ferdinand, desirous to please Russia, and rightly 
believing that the conversion of Boris to the Greek 
faith would be the means of obtaining his own 
recognition by the Czar, endeavoured, without 
success, to obtain the Pope's consent to this step. 
Policy certainly dictates that the future Prince of 
Bulgaria should profess the same form of religion as 
his people, and, without the consent of the Holy See, 
Boris has been formally converted. Thus, in our own 
clay, the old struggle between the Greek and Roman 



244 PRINCE FERDINAND. 

Churches for supremacy in Bulgaria, which we saw 
in the times of the present Czars, has been once more 
apparent. 

Prince Ferdinand's marriage and the birth of an 
heir strengthened the dynasty but weakened its great 
minister. From that date, the sovereign became 
increasingly impatient of control, until at last on the 
31st of May, 1894, the world learnt with surprise that 
he had dismissed the " Bismarck of Bulgaria " from 
his counsels. His alliance with a Bourbon princess 
had greatly increased his desire for recognition, and 
he regarded his minister as the chief obstacle in the 
way. There were intriguers at the Prince's elbow, 
old colleagues whom Stambuloff's growing arrogance 
had alienated, who poisoned their sovereign's mind 
against the Premier. Relations between the two 
men became worse ; conversations at the palace were 
faithfully reported to the minister, who was not 
backward in telling his master to his face what he 
thought of his conduct. Stambuloff twice offered to 
resign, the Prince declined to accept his resignation, 
fearing that the great popularity, which his minister 
had just gained by the appointment of the second 
batch of Bulgarian bishops in Macedonia, would make 
him even more dangerous in opposition than in office. 
A domestic scandal, in which one of Stambuloff's 
most trusted colleagues was involved, gave the Prince 
his opportunity. He pressed for the nomination of a 
favourite of his own to the vacant portfolio, and 
carried his point by threatening to abdicate rather 
than yield. The presence of an enemy within his 
Cabinet embarrassed the Premier and emboldened 



STAMBULOFF S FALL. 24$ 

the Prince and the opposition to further attacks. In 
a moment of anger, Stambuloff sat down and wrote 
a hasty letter to his sovereign, in which he informed 
him of his resignation, and expressed the hope that 
his successor in the premiership would not be such a 
" common fellow " — the epithet which the Prince had 
conferred upon him. On May 31, 1894, M. Stoiloff, 
an able lawyer, who had been private secretary to 
Prince Alexander and had left Stambuloff in disgust, 
became President of the Council. The people of 
Sofia, for whom the fallen statesman had done so 
much, now proved the truth of the maxim that there 
is no gratitude in politics. He, who had been but 
yesterday the idol of the populace, was spat on in the 
streets and greeted with shouts of " Down with the 
tyrant ! " when he took his walks abroad with his 
faithful servant. His house was besieged by the 
mob, and the Government took no steps to protect 
him from the violence of his enemies. Only one 
thing was needed to complete the parallel between 
the " Bulgarian Bismarck " and his great prototype, 
and that was not lacking long. Following the bad 
example of the great ex-chancellor, Stambuloff un- 
bosomed himself to a sympathetic journalist, who 
published in a German newspaper a violent diatribe 
against Prince Ferdinand. For this indiscretion 
Stambuloff was never forgiven. From that moment 
the buttons were off the foils, and it was war to the 
death between the rivals. The Prince instituted 
legal proceedings against him for defamation ; the 
new Cabinet dismissed his adherents from every 
official post. If Stambuloff had chastised the electors 



246 Prince Ferdinand. 

with whips, Stoiloff chastised them with scorpions. 
In one night the newly-elected Sobranje passed thirty- 
two laws, one of them consisting of some three 
hundred sections. A law was enacted "for the 
prosecution of government officials, who appear to 
possess more wealth than they ought " ; another 
abolished the existing pension system, and thus 
reduced the families of ex-Ministers to beggary. 
Stambuloff 's property was sequestrated ; bands of 
peasants felled the timber on his estates ; he was 
almost ruined, and had to borrow money to avoid an 
execution on his furniture ; he applied for a passport, 
in order to recruit his shattered health at a foreign 
spa, and his application was refused. But he had 
not to endure these insults much longer. On the 
evening of July 15, 1895, as he was driving home from 
the Union Club with an old friend, three men leapt 
into the street, with yataghans and a revolver in their 
hands. Before Stambuloff's old servant had had 
time to fire, the assassins had cut his master down 
and were hacking his prostrate body with their knives 
as it lay' on the roadway. At the first shot, the three 
murderers fled, and the police, who were present, 
made no attempt to arrest them. Their unfortunate 
victim was taken home to die. Death came as a 
relief, for both his arms had been cut to pieces, one 
eye had been half gouged out, and his forehead bore 
the marks of fifteen wounds. Three days later the 
ablest of Bulgaria's sons breathed his last. But his 
enemies did not spare him even when dead. The 
scene at his funeral was scandalous, and showed that 
seventeen years of modern civilisation had not 



stambuloff^s murder. 247 

entirely effaced the savage characteristics of the 
ancient Bulgarians. 

Since that date Bulgaria has been in disgrace in 
the eyes of Europe. This is not the place to discuss 
the truth of the charges which have been levelled at 
the head of Prince Ferdinand by the murdered 
statesman's friends, who have not hesitated to 
accuse the sovereign of complicity in the crime. 
But the neglect of the Government to bring the 
assassins to justice has excited general indignation, 
and Bulgaria, so long the admiration of Western 
Europe, has fallen under the ban. 

It would be unfair, however, to judge the Bulgarian 
nation by the misdeeds of some of its members or by 
the passing temper of the moment. With all their 
faults, and in spite of all their trials and temptations, 
the peasant statesmen have achieved great triumphs 
during the comparatively brief period of their country's 
existence as a practically independent state. Roads 
have been improved ; railways constructed ; bridges 
built. The capital has been remodelled, until the 
traveller can scarcely recognise in the stuccoed Sofia 
of to-day the squalid Turkish village of twenty years 
ago. The old feeling of hatred towards the Turks 
has all but died away ; and, though we still hear of 
occasional outrages upon Mohammedans, the " Bul- 
garian atrocities " of 1876, and the subsequent reprisals 
during the war have left no traces behind. The 
migration of the Mussulman inhabitants is deplored 
by the Government, because it deprives the country 
of a source of prosperity, and at the last census, out 
of a total population of considerably over three 



2 4 8 



PRINCE FERDINAND. 



millions, scarcely more than half a million were 
Turks. But it is upon the Bulgarians themselves 
that the future of the nation depends. Sir Frank 
Lascelles told them when he was British representa- 
tive at Sofia that they possessed more common-sense 
than any other people whom he knew. Sternly 
practical, thrifty, and without wild ideals, they may 
not be the most attractive of the Balkan races ; but 
they possess qualities which must tell in the long run, 
and which should one day secure them, under proper 
Government, the foremost place in the history of the 
Peninsula. 




PART III 

SER VIA. 

" On Kossovo lay the headless body ; 
But the eagles touched it not, nor ravens, 
Nor the foot of man, nor hoof of courser." 

Bowring, Servian Popular Poetry. 

"Of all the Balkan peoples, the most important and the most 
powerful were the Serbs : they seemed to have a great destiny 
before them ; but this brave, poetic, careless, frivolous race never 
attempted to assimilate the remains of ancient culture, and incurred 
the hatred of the Catholic West and the penalty of isolation." — De 
la Jonquiere, Histoirc de V Empire Ottoman. 

I. 



ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 
(TO A.D. 1336.) 

The people known as Serbs did not always inhabit 

the country which now bears their name. The ancient 

Greek geographer, Ptolemy, mentions them as living 

on the banks of the river Don, to the north-east of 

the Sea of Azov. Other authorities believe that their 

primitive home is to be found in the regions adjoining 

the Carpathians, where we hear of Serbs at the period 

just previous to their immigration into the Balkan 

lands. It is probable that in the second and third 

349 



±$0 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OR THE SERBS. 

centuries of the Christian era small, scattered colonies 
of Serbs settled in the Peninsula ; some of the colonists 
may have come from choice, others may have been 
brought there as prisoners of war. But it was not till 
the middle of the sixth century that they appeared 
in South-Eastern Europe in large numbers, plundering 
and ravaging the country south of the Danube in all 
directions. The Greek Emperors of Constantinople, 
who at that time held the whole Peninsula as far as 
that river beneath their sway, were at first too much 
occupied with wars and invasions in other parts of 
their dominions to pay much heed to this new invasion 
of strangers. In fact, the Emperor Heraclius about 
the year 620 actually encouraged the Serbs to cross 
the Danube and settle on the right bank, in order 
that they might serve as a buffer against the assaults 
of a much more dangerous race, the Avars, who in 
the seventh century were the fiercest of all the 
Empire's barbarous foes. The Serbs were accordingly 
permitted to occupy a large tract of territory in the 
western part of the Peninsula. They displaced the 
old Illyrian inhabitants of the Adriatic coast, made 
the present city of Ragusa their capital, and stretched 
as far south as Macedonia, including what is now 
Montenegro in their settlements. Belgrade, the 
present Servian capital, belonged to them, but was 
not regarded as a place of much importance. Thus, 
by about 650 A.D., the Serbs had set their mark upon 
a considerable portion of the Balkan lands. Recog- 
nising the more or less nominal authority of the 
Greek Emperor, to whom they paid tribute, they 
lived under a government of their own, obeying their 



OLD SERVIAN GOVERNMENT. 2$! 

own chiefs and following their own customs. A 
Greek historian of the period expressly mentions that 
they " had the right of choosing their rulers, who 
governed them in patriarchal fashion." The names 
of these early chieftains have not been preserved. 
We are not told who headed the first great migration 
of the Serbs into the Peninsula, or who presided over 
their fortunes during the first two centuries after their 
coming. It is not till 830 that we hear of a prince 
or Grand Zupan, of Servia, known as Voislav. 

The constitution of the Serbs at this period seems 
to have closely resembled that of all the Slavonic 
nations. The Serbs have " the defects of their 
qualities," and the strong spirit of independence, 
which they have always shown, has caused a singular 
disinclination to unite under the sceptre of a monarch. 
Throughout Servian history we may trace the misfor- 
tunes of the race to this lack of union, just as its 
greatest glories are due to its love of freedom. At 
the dawn of their history their government was 
framed upon this idea. The people, instead of 
forming a compact nation under the guidance of one 
man, consisted of a number of tribes ; at the head of 
each was a chief called by the name of Ziipan, derived 
from the word zupa, which means a " district." These 
various Zupans used to meet together in an assembly 
known as the Skupclitina, from a verb meaning " to 
assemble," for the purpose of choosing one of their 
number as Grand Zupan, or prince. Thus we have 
a loose confederation of tribes, each ruled by a 
chieftain of its own, presided over by that chieftain 
who seemed to his colleagues the strongest and most 



2$ 2 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

capable, and who, in his turn, was nominally the 
vassal of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople. 
Each of the Zupans enjoyed full independence in 
his own province, and in early times the authority 
of the Grand Zupan over the rest of his fellows — for 
they hardly regarded him as their superior — was 
never very strict. In short, down to the accession 
of Stephen Nemanja in 1 143, the Serbs formed a sort 
of aristocratic republic, a kind of government which 
exactly suited the national character. 

Religion is inseparably intermingled with the 
political life of every Eastern nation, and no event 
was of such great importance for the Serbs as their 
conversion to Christianity. We have shown in the 
last part of this book how the Bulgarians were con- 
verted by the efforts of Constantine and Methodius, 
the two apostles of the Balkans. The same two 
eloquent preachers spread the tidings of the gospel 
among the idolatrous Serbs. Radoslav, who held the 
office of Grand Zupan about the middle of the ninth 
century, adopted the new faith, his successor followed 
his example, and the people imitated the lead of its 
chiefs. Civilisation came with the Christian mission- 
aries, and the savage customs which the Serbs had 
brought from their ancient home gradually disap- 
peared. But the religion of peace did not make 
them forget those warlike pursuits to which they had 
been always addicted. It was at this period that we 
hear of the first war between the Serbs and their 
Bulgarian neighbours. 

Just as in our own time the mutual jealousies of 
these two kindred races have helped to maintain the 



FIRST QUARREL WITH BULGARIA. 253 

Ottoman Power over a large part of the Peninsula, so 
a thousand years ago the same motives were fully 
appreciated by the Greek Emperors, who occupied the 
position which the Sultan now holds at Constanti- 
nople. From tb.3 latter part of the ninth century, 
when Vlastimir was head of the Servian Confedera- 
tion, dates the long series of hostilities between the 
two countries, which, with varying fortune and con- 




THE SERVIAN ARMS. 



siderable intervals of peace, continued down to the 
subjugation of both races by the Turks, only to 
survive at the close of the nineteenth century after 
both had been emancipated. It was Presjam, prede- 
cessor of the Bulgarian hero, Boris, who began the 
attack which lasted for three years without any 
material advantage to either side. The river Timok, 
then, as now, the boundary between the two states, 
was presumably the principal theatre of the war, and 
the Serbs seem, on the whole, to have held their own 
in this first trial of strength. But Boris resolved to 
avenge this national defeat. He selected a moment 
when the Serbs were more than usually divided, owing 
to the partition of Vlastimir's power between his three 
sons, to fall upon them. But the three disputants 
sank their differences and defeated the invader, 



254 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

whose son was taken prisoner. Boris sued for peace, 
and subsequently assisted Muntimir, the eldest of the 
three Servian brothers, to secure the supremacy in 
his own land. For a considerable period the Serbs 
remained unmolested by their neighbours and at 
peace among themselves. The power of the Grand 
Zupans was gradually consolidating, and two prin- 
ciples of government became noticeable— one, that, 
in order to avoid competition, a near relative of the 
last chief should be made head of the Confederation 
whenever a vacancy occurred ; the other, that the 
residence of this ruler should be at Desnica. 

The accession of Simeon to the Bulgarian throne 
was followed by disastrous results for the Servian 
race. The Grand Zupan, Peter, had offended the 
mighty Bulgarian Czar by assisting his enemy, the 
Greek Emperor, against him. Egged on by one of 
the Confederate Servian chiefs, who was Peter's 
bitterest foe, the Bulgarian monarch despatched a 
large army against his neighbour. By means of a 
deceitful stratagem, the Bulgarian generals induced 
the unsuspecting Peter to visit their camp. No sooner 
had he arrived, than they put him under arrest and 
carried him off as a prisoner to their own land, where 
he died by the hand of an assassin about 917. In 
his place the conquerors set over the Servian people 
Paul Brankovic, a nephew of the former Servian 
prince Muntimir, whe had spent his life in banish- 
ment in Bulgaria, and had accompanied the Bul- 
garian army on its victorious march. But Paul did 
not prove to be a mere puppet. He took the earliest 
opportunity of showing his independence of Bulgarian 



SERVIA DEVASTATED. 255 

dictation as well as of the Greek Emperor, his nominal 
suzerain. Unfortunately for him, a pretender appeared 
upon the scene in the person of Muntimir's grand- 
son, Zacharia, whose claims were naturally supported 
by the indignant Greeks and Bulgarians. Paul easily 
defeated the former, but against the latter he was 
powerless. The Bulgarian Czar deposed his creature 
as easily as he had set him up, and Zacharia was 
speedily installed as ruler of the Servian stock, the 
chiefs accepting as law the will of the Bulgarian 
sovereign in their choice of a prince. But Simeon 
■ once more learnt that it was one thing to put a puppet 
on the throne and quite another to keep him sub- 
servient. Zacharia, like his predecessor, soon set 
Bulgarian tutelage at defiance. At first, his efforts 
were successful ; the Bulgarian generals fell into his 
hands, and he sent their heads to his ally, the Greek 
Emperor, as a proof alike of his triumph and his 
allegiance. But Simeon took a terrible revenge. He 
was soon able to turn his individual attention to 
Servia, and in a single battle overthrew the power 
of Zacharia. The defeated ruler fled for ever from 
his country, which was ravaged as it had never been 
ravaged before. All the towns became the booty 
of the victorious army. Many of the inhabitants fled, 
like their prince, to Croatia; their land, to use the 
phrase of an old writer, "had become one vast, 
gloomy, uninhabited forest." Travellers who visited 
the country about this period could discover " no 
more than fifty vagrants, without women or children, 
who extracted a precarious subsistence from the 
chase." While the first Bulgarian Empire was at its 



256 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

zenith, Servia was almost blotted out from the map. 
It was the first instance of that historical see-saw 
between the two adjoining Balkan states which has 
lasted ever since : when one is up, the other is down ; 
what one gains is usually at the expense of the other. 
To Ceslav, the son of Paul Brankovic, whom the 
Bulgarians had carried away into captivity, belongs the 
honour of restoring the might of the Servian name. 
When Simeon died, and the power of his Empire 
began to wane, Ceslav made his escape from his con- 
finement and sought the aid of the Greek Emperor 
against their mutual foe. Following his traditional* 
policy of playing off one Balkan race against another, 
the Emperor consented, and Ceslav returned to Servia 
sure of his support. The scattered Serbs flocked to 
his side, and Ceslav was elected as their head. He 
speedily drove out the Bulgarians, while he had the 
tact to show himself the grateful and devoted vassal 
of the Greek Empire, whose nominal authority he 
was not strong enough to throw off. From this 
period, about 950, down to the early years of the 
eleventh century, there is a complete gap in the 
Servian records. We hear of a certain "just, pacific, 
and virtuous prince," John Vladimir, who, although 
defeated by the great Bulgarian Czar Samuel, was 
fortunate enough to win his conqueror's friendship 
and the hand of his daughter. But he was brutally 
murdered by John Vladislav, the last of the early 
Bulgarian Czars in 1015, and his name is still 
cherished in Albania as that of a saint. But the 
Bulgarians did not hold Servia for long. Three 
years later their supremacy succumbed to the 



VICTORIES OF VOISLAV. 2$/ 

Greek Emperor, and with them the Serbs too 
became the subjects of the same ruler. It is not 
till 1040 that we find Servia once more free. The 
author of its freedom was a certain Stephen Voislav 
or Dobroslav, a chief of the sainted Vladimir's race, 
who escaped from his prison at Constantinople and 
fled to his native fastnesses among the rocks of Monte- 
negro. From this mountain eyrie he swooped down 
upon the rich argosies of Constantinople, which passed 
to and fro along the Adriatic, while he annihilated an 
army which was sent against him in the narrow defiles 
of the limestone rocks. A simultaneous rising of the 
Bulgarians against their Greek masters strengthened 
his hands, and even when Bulgaria once more fell 
beneath the imperial sway, the Serbs maintained 
their hard-won independence. So great were the 
disasters which befell the Emperor's troops, that 
Byzantine writers could only explain them by the 
appearance of a comet. The earliest Servian compo- 
sition extant, a chronicle by an anonymous priest of 
Dioclea in. Montenegro, dwells with pardonable pride 
and Oriental exaggeration upon these victories of the 
national arms. What became of Dobroslav, we are not 
told ; but about 1050 his son, Michael Voislavic, suc- 
ceeded him, and reigned uninterruptedly for thirty 
years. His reign is remarkable for the first evidence 
of political and ecclesiastical relations between the 
Serbs and the Italians. We find Pope Gregory VII. 
addressing Michael by the title of " king," and sending 
him a consecrated banner. Fear of the Normans 
prompted the Servian prince to seek the protection 
of the Holy See, and political reasons had quite as 



258 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

much to do with his conversion from the Greek to the 
Roman faith as religious scruples. But the union with 
Rome was not lasting, and any hopes which Gregory 
may have had of bringing the Serb race permanently 
under the papal authority were doomed to failure. 
With the Greek Emperor there was peace during a 
great part of Michael's reign, and that prince was con- 
tent to hold certain honorary posts in the official 
hierarchy of Constantinople. But later on he abetted 
the Bulgarians in an abortive revolt, which aimed at 
placing his son Bodin on the Bulgarian throne, and 
captured the important harbour of Durazzo on the 
Adriatic from the Greeks. His son extended his con- 
quests, and at the beginning of the twelfth century 
the power of the Serbs had made itself felt. But it 
was with the accession of Stephen Nemanja, which is 
variously fixed at 1143 or 11 59, that the greatness of 
mediaeval Servia really began. This able man de- 
scended from a princely family of Dioclea, where the 
Servian rulers had taken up their residence, founded 
a new dynasty which was called after his name. He 
could truly boast that he was " no less a man than his 
forefathers," for he governed all the territory that they 
had ever possessed, and more besides. He united 
Bosnia to Servia in 1169, and humbled all the chief- 
tains beneath him, founded many churches and monas- 
teries, and persecuted those who did not follow the 
tenets of the orthodox Greek Church. But it was long 
before he succeeded in making much headway against 
the Greek Emperor, who was still the suzerain of 
Servia. While Manuel Comnenus sat upon the throne 
of Constantinople, rebellion was useless, After twice. 



STEPHEN NEMAN J A. 2$g 

attempting to throw off his allegiance, the Servian 
prince came to the Emperor's camp with bare feet 
and arms, a halter round his neck, and his drawn 
sword pointed to the earth, in token of submission. 
He became the ally of his liege lord against the 
Venetians, and received as a reward the district of 
Rascia, the modern Novibazar, which separates Servia 
from Montenegro. But when Manuel died in 1180, 
Nemanja at once availed himself of the weakness of 
the Empire to extend his power. Pristina became his 
capital, Nisch was added to his dominions, which were 
now double of what they had been at his accession. 
He refused to pay tribute any longer, and in 1 185 pro- 
claimed his complete independence and assumed the 
title of " King of Servia," but was never crowned. 
The attempts of the Emperor to reduce him to his 
former position of a vassal failed, and the Greeks were 
compelled to sue for peace. Nemanja now treated 
the Emperor as an equal, and the marriage of his son 
with the daughter of his former suzerain showed that 
Servia was no longer a subordinate state. It is curious 
to see the desire which he showed for a closer friend- 
ship with the German Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, 
who was then setting out on the third crusade. 
Nemanja despatched a Servian embassy to Germany 
and offered Barbarossa a free passage through his 
dominions and his best town to rest in by the way. 
An ancient writer has expressed the utter astonish- 
ment which this offer created in Germany, where the 
very name of Servia was at that time unknown ; in 
fact, the common opinion was that it was situated 
between Russia and Hungary ! Barbarossa, however, 



260 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

came to Belgrade, where Nemanja met him, and the 
two monarchs held numerous friendly conversations. 
Tired of the world and satiated with his conquests, 
Nemanja resolved to devote the evening of his days 
to the exercises of religion. In 1195 he abdicated in 
favour of his eldest son, who, like all the Servian kings, 
bore the name of Stephen, which, from its literal mean- 
ing of a " crown," had come to mean " the man who 
is crowned." This done, Nemanja retired to the 
monastery of Chilander, which he had founded on 
Mount Athos. He died five years later under the 
name of Simeon, which he had adopted when he 
became a monk. His youngest son, who had already 
retired to a cloister on the Holy Mount, is known as 
the first Archbishop of Servia, and was canonised as 
St. Sava. He played a very important part in the 
history of his time and exercised a great influence 
upon the Servian people. It was owing to his efforts 
that the Greek patriarch of Constantinople allowed 
the Serbs to elect an archbishop from among the 
members of their own priesthood, and he cast a halo 
over the Servian crown which made the nation respect 
it as they had never respected it before. Sava crowned 
his eldest brother Stephen with his own hands in the 
midst of a great assembly, and cried aloud, " Long 
live the first-crowned king and autocrat of Servia, 
Stephen." And all the people cried " Amen," and 
repeated the Creed after the fashion of the Eastern 
Church. From that moment Stephen Uros bore the 
title of " the first-crowned," for he was the first of his 
race who was solemnly anointed king. From that 
moment, too, the supremacy of the Eastern Church 



UMOX WITH BOS. MA. 26 1 

was established in Servia. Pope Innocent III. made 
strenuous efforts to induce Stephen to enter the 
Catholic fold. But his arguments were in vain, and 
Servia remained attached to the Eastern communion. 

The reign of Stephen Uros was of great benefit to 
the Servian nation. Essentially a pacific ruler, the 
sovereign devoted his whole attention to the consolida- 
tion of the dominions which his father had conquered. 
Pie never once voluntarily drew the sword during the 
quarter of a century for which he sat on the throne, 
but founded monasteries and strengthened the internal 
organisation of the country. The earliest Servian 
coins date from this period and bear his superscription. 
By means of alliances with the Bulgarians and the 
Greek Emperor, he greatly raised the position of 
Servia abroad, and when the Latin conquest of Con- 
stantinople placed the Emperor Baldwin on the throne, 
one of his first acts was to recognise Stephen Uros 
as " independent king of Servia, Dalmatia, Bosnia," 
and other adjoining districts. 

But this union of Bosnia and Dalmatia with the 
Servian crown brought down upon the peace-loving 
Stephen the enmity of Andrew IP, King of Hungary. 
Hitherto Servia and Hungary had been separated 
from one another, except at one point, by a " buffer 
state," consisting of Bosnia, the Herzegovina and Dal- 
matia. But when these territories were merged in the 
new Servian kingdom, the two rivals were brought 
face to face. Andrew IP stirred up Stephen's second 
brother, Vouk, against him, promising to make him 
an independent prince. But St. Sava once more 
appeared on the scene as the good angel of Servia, 



262 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

and reconciled the two brothers. The Hungarian 
monarch's attempt failed, and the reign of Stephen 
Uros ended peacefully in 1224. His two sons, Stephen 
III. and Ladislas, who succeeded him at brief intervals 
upon the throne, left comparatively little mark on the 
history of their country. The elder of the two rounded 
off his dominions to the east and west by the capture 
of the important town of Vidin from the Bulgarian 
Czars — a place which has always been an object of dis- 
cord between the two nations — and by the addition of 
Syrmia, the district between the Save and the Danube, 
which was ceded to Servia by the King of Hungary. 
But Stephen III. was compelled by a mental malady 
to resign, and his younger brother, Ladislas, abandoned 
the Bulgarian conquest on his marriage with the 
daughter of Asen, the great Czar. Peace, however, 
was established by means of this matrimonial alliance 
between the rival nationalities, to the great advantage 
of both. Ladislas availed himself of the opportunity 
to improve the education of his people, to make laws 
and encourage commerce. The Servian mines, of 
which much has lately been written, date from his 
reign. Ladislas, like Milosh six hundred years later, 
sent to Germany for mining experts to report on the 
mineral wealth of Servia, and the roads and excava- 
tions which are found at the present day show that 
at an early period attempts were made to develop the 
natural resources of the country. 

A third brother of the last two sovereigns followed 
them on the throne in 1237, under the title of Stephen 
IV., surnamed " the Great." Stephen IV. was a wise 
and prudent monarch, a lover of peace like his father, 



INROADS OF THE MONGOLS. 263 

and a patron of schools and such learning as there was. 
Ably seconded by his French wife, Helena, a niece of 
the first Latin Emperor of Constantinople, he laboured 
hard for the civilisation of his warlike people. But he 
could not escape the terrible inroads of the Mongols, 
which threatened the kingdom of Hungary with de- 
struction, and were a grave source of danger to Servia 
as well. Stephen gave the Hungarian king a refuge 
in his domains, and thus called down upon himself the 
vengeance of the barbarian hordes. In a great battle 
the Serbs and Dalmatians drove them back to Spalato, 
but on their way home bands of stragglers traversed 
Servia and levied blackmail upon its unfortunate 
inhabitants. Freed from these marauders, Stephen 
found a greater source of trouble in the rebellious 
spirit of his eldest son. Not content to wait until his 
father's crown descended to him, the heir-apparent 
intrigued with the ungrateful King of Hungary, whose 
daughter he had married. The old King Stephen 
refused to resign, whereupon his son marched into 
Servia at the head of a Hungarian army, deposed his 
father and put the crown on his own head, assuming 
the title of Stephen V. The aged monarch, abandoned 
by his retainers and naturally a man of peace, ac- 
cepted his fate, and lived, till his death in 1272, as a 
subject of his treacherous son. But the young king 
did not long enjoy his ill-gotten title. Stung by 
remorse, and believing himself to be the object of 
divine vengeance, he abdicated in 1275, and his 
brother took his place under the style of Stephen VI. 
With him begins what may be called the "great 
century " of the Servian kingdom, when Servia be- 



264 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

came the dominant factor in Balkan politics and 
enjoyed an influence such as she has never possessed 
either before or since. The events of the long reign 
of Stephen VI. led up to the culmination of Servia's 
power under the greatest of all her monarchs, Stephen 
Dusan. 

The first gains of Servia were made at the expense 
of the Greek Empire, which the Serbs were now 
strong enough to despise. During the war between 
the Emperor Michael Paleologus and the Bulgarians 
in 1278, the Byzantine troops violated the territory of 
the Servian monarch. Stephen VI. was not the man 
to suffer such an insult without a protest, and when 
he found that his protests were unavailing he sent an 
army to protect his frontiers. The Greek Emperor 
swore that he would " sweep him off the face of the 
earth," and as soon as he had made peace with the 
Bulgarians, set out in 1282 to carry out his vow of 
vengeance. His sister "had been affianced at his 
desire to the Servian king, at a time when he was not 
yet on the throne. But the Byzantine princess, ac- 
customed to the luxury of Constantinople, took such 
a dislike to the monotony and simplicity of life at the 
Servian Court of Pristina, that she refused to marry 
its future master. The Emperor laid the whole blame 
of his sister's refusal upon Stephen, who, however, 
was a Lothario rather than an ascetic. The tales 
which are told of his private life certainly do not 
accord with the patriarchal manners and primitive 
virtues which usually prevailed in the Royal family of 
mediaeval. Servia. But, whatever were the motives of 
the Greek Emperor, he was destined to fail in his 



WAR WITH THE GREEKS. 



265 



designs. Stephen at once convoked an Assembly of 
his chieftains, and, encouraged by their support, 
assumed the offensive against his antagonist. All 
the strongholds of the Empire along the valley of 
the Vardar fell into the hands of the Serbs, while 




CORONATION-CHURCH OF THE OLD SERVIAN CZARS. 

Michael Paleologus, delayed by stress of weather and 
the state of his own health, was powerless to save his 
Macedonian possessions. The whole nation was in 
arms against the Greek Emperor ; even Stephen's 
elder brother, who had abdicated, contributed his 
services to the common cause. But, before the motley 
army of many nationalities and creeds which the 



266 ORIGIN And early history of THE SER&S. 

Greek Emperor had gathered together could come to 
close quarters with the Serbs, Michael himself was no 
more. " God," says the old Servian historian, Arch- 
bishop Danilo, " allowed him not so much as to 
see Servia even from afar." He had only advanced 
three days' journey from Constantinople when he 
died, leaving his successor, Andronicus II., to carry 
on the war. But Andronicus was too much occupied 
with theological controversies to attend to the less 
important business of defending his Empire. Stephen 
continued to pursue his victorious course unchecked, 
Macedonia lay at his feet, and he penetrated to the 
shores of the ^Egean and set up his standard on the 
holy mount of Athos, where his great ancestor, Stephen 
Nemanja, had died. For some years this desultory 
warfare went on, until at last the Greek Emperor 
sued for peace. Not desiring to occupy the whole 
of Macedonia, the Serbs contented themselves with 
retaining the frontier fortresses as a bulwark of their 
realm. For the rest of his long reign, Stephen VI. 
had nothing to fear from the Byzantine rulers. On 
the contrary, Andronicus was reduced to beg his aid 
against a new and terrible enemy, who was destined 
to overthrow both the Greek Empire and the Servian 
Kingdom by the middle of the following century. 

The power of the Turks, of whom we now hear 
for the first time in connection with Servian history, 
had grown at the beginning of the fourteenth century 
to be a standing menace to the Greek Empire. In 
1 301 Andronicus implored the assistance of his former 
adversary Stephen, and, after the fashion of the time, 
proposed to the Servian monarch a matrimonial 



A BYZANTINE BRIDE. 267 

alliance between the two houses as a precursor of a 
political union. Stephen was at the moment a 
widower and had no particular objection to a Byzan- 
tine marriage, strenuously though this was resisted by 
many of his friends. They foresaw that the introduc- 
tion of a Greek princess into the Servian Court would 
infallibly lead to those feminine intrigues in which 
the ladies of the Imperial family were adepts. But 
Stephen refused to listen to his advisers ; and the 
marriage between himself and the Greek Emperor's 
daughter Simonis, who was no less than thirty-four 
years younger than her husband, was celebrated 
with great pomp at Salonica. Before many years had 
passed, the Servian sovereign had good cause to rue 
that day. 

He lost no time in performing his promise to his 
Imperial father-in-law and assisting him against the 
Turks. A Serb army crossed into Asia Minor, and 
in 1 303 their efforts drove back the Ottoman invaders. 
Covered with glory, the victorious Serbs returned to 
their own land. But the danger which menaced the 
Greek Empire had been only temporarily averted. 
Twelve years later Andronicus once more applied to 
Stephen for help. The Servian army entered Thrace 
and swept the Turks into the sea. Few of the Otto- 
man soldiers escaped with their lives, none regained 
their liberty. Twice had Servian arms saved the 
Byzantine Empire. No less successful was the short 
campaign against the Bulgarians, who invaded 
Servia with a body of Tartar allies. The Arch- 
bishop called forth the people and led them in 
person. His efforts prevailed ; the Bulgarians were 



268 origin And early history of the Serbs. 

defeated, and compelled by King Stephen, who had 
now come up, to beg for peace. From this time dates 
the removal of the archiepiscopal see of Servia from 
Usica, on the river Morava, to Ipek, in what is now 
called Old Servia and no longer part of the Servian 
Kingdom. 

Fortunate in his foreign policy, Stephen VI. was 
most unhappy in his domestic affairs. His Greek 
wife, Simonis, intrigued, on behalf of her son Constan- 
tine, whom she wished to see as her husband's suc- 
cessor instead of her stepson Stephen, who was the 
heir-apparent. The Queen was supported by the 
members of her own family, who wanted a tool of 
their own as King of Servia ; the claims of Stephen, 
the rightful heir, found champions among the nobility 
and priesthood of Servia, who had from the first 
feared Greek interference. Urged by them, the heir- 
apparent declared civil war. But the King suc- 
ceeded in dispersing his eldest son's followers without 
bloodshed, and the penitent heir returned to the 
palace and asked forgiveness. But his crafty step- 
mother, fearing lest he should prevail upon his father 
to reinstate him in his former position, procured his 
arrest. This done, she ordered his eyes to be put 
out, and sent him in chains for safe keeping to her 
father, who threw him into a Greek monastery. But 
the orders of the savage queen had been only half 
executed. After seven years of imprisonment her 
stepson reappeared in his father's kingdom with eye- 
sight unimpaired. The people believed that a miracle 
had taken place, and ascribed the marvellous restora- 
tion of the prince's sight to the intervention of a 



THE SERBS ATTACK BULGARIA. 269 

saint. But the executioner entrusted with the work 
of blinding him had only pretended to perform his 
odious task. He had held the hot plate of metal, 
which was used for the purpose, at so great a dis- 
tance from the prisoner's eyes that they had not been 
injured. The treacherous designs of the Queen had 
thus been frustrated. The Serb clergy, whose leader, 
Archbishop Danilo, the chronicler of his times, had 
procured the release of the heir-apparent, resolved to 
place their favourite upon the throne. The national 
party, which had been formed to resist the insidious 
influence of the Greeks, carried the day, and when 
the old king died in 1321, the clergy at once pro- 
claimed his eldest son king under the title of Stephen 
VII., to which he added the surname of Uros. 

His first act was to subdue his half-brother Con- 
stantine, who attempted to dispute his right to the 
throne. But the removal of his rival did not bring 
peace to the land. The short reign of Stephen VII. 
is one uninterrupted succession of wars with the King 
of Hungary, the Bulgarian Czar, and the Greek Em- 
peror,in which the Servian monarch met with invariable 
success. Instigated by the Bulgarians, the ambitious 
Hungarian sovereign attacked the Wallachs, who 
were allies of the Serbs. Stephen VII. crossed the 
Danube to the relief of his friends, and inflicted an 
overwhelming defeat upon the Hungarian troops. He 
then turned his arms against the Bulgarian Czar 
Michael, who had mortally offended him by divorcing 
his sister Neda, and sending her and her son Alex- 
ander back to Servia. We have described in the 
second part of the book the terrible disaster which 



270 ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE SERBS. 

befell the Bulgarian army on the fatal field of 
Velbuzd on the 28th of June, 1330. The Bulgarian 
Czar fell and his Empire with him. The Serbs did 
not, indeed, incorporate Bulgaria with their own 
country, but they took care to keep a tight hold upon 
its government. Stephen put his sister as regent on 
the Bulgarian throne for her son Alexander, and for 
the next generation Bulgaria followed the lead of 
Servia and recognised the practical supremacy of 
the Servian kings. Time had, indeed, brought its 
revenge ; the Servian domination over Bulgaria in 
the fourteenth century was the compensation for the 
Bulgarian influence over Servia in the tenth and 
eleventh. 

The Hungarian and Bulgarian victories of Stephen 
Uros were followed by a successful campaign against 
the Greek Emperor, which led to the annexation of 
half Macedonia. But the conqueror committed the 
mistake of his father and became entangled in the 
wiles of the Byzantine Court. If any man had had 
a sad experience of Greek alliances, that man was 
Stephen 'Uros. Yet he chose a second wife from 
among the Byzantine princesses. No sooner had the 
fair Greek borne him a son than she began to plot 
against her stepson, Stephen, afterwards known as 
Dusan, the most famous name in Servian history. 
The latter took up arms against his father and forti- 
fied himself in Montenegro against the Royal troops. 
The struggle between father and son, which had 
already been the greatest blot upon the pages of 
Servian history, once more began. Backed by the 
nobles, who were jealous of Greek influence, the heir- 



dusan' s accession. 271 

apparent besieged his sire in his own residence and 
compelled him to surrender. It is said that he was 
ready to spare his father's life, but that his partisans 
urged him to secure the throne by a parricide. The 
old king was imprisoned in a castle, and there strangled 
by his son's minions in 1336. With the death rattle 
in his throat, he cursed his cruel child and all his 
house. Attempts have been made to extenuate the 
crime ; but nothing can palliate it before the tribunal 
of posterity. The murderer's horrible deed is branded 
in letters of blood in the annals of his country, for 
from that moment he received the surname of Dusan, 
or " the throttler," from the Serb verb dusiti, which 
means to " suffocate." In vain did Dusan endeavour 
to atone for his crime by building countless churches 
and convents. His father's curse was fulfilled, not in 
the days of Dusan but in succeeding generations, and 
the mighty Empire, which he founded, fell to pieces 
when its founder was no more. 

The first period of Servian history is over. We 
have seen the gradual development of the Servian 
monarchy out of a loose federation of chiefs owing 
nominal obedience to the Greek Emperor. We have 
traced the struggles of the Servian rulers with their 
Bulgarian rivals and their Byzantine suzerains. With 
the accession of Stephen Dusan in 1336 begins the 
golden age of the old Servian monarchy. 



II. 



THE ZENITH OF SERVIA UNDER STEPHEN DUSAN. 



(1336— 1356.) 



The reign of Stephen Dusan is the apotheosis of 
the South Slavonic race. Never has the power of 
Servia been so great or the Servian dominions so 
vast as under the sway of this mighty ruler, who 
raised his country to the rank of an Empire, equipped 
it with a complete code of laws and made it respected 
and honoured all over Eastern Europe. With ex- 
cusable pride the Servian patriots of to-day look back 
to the age of Dusan as the most glorious epoch of 
their national history, and regard that monarch, with 
all his faults, as a national hero. The memories of 
his exploits inspire some ardent enthusiasts with the 
desire to revive the ancient splendour of his sove- 
reignty, and the " great Servian idea," which from 
time to time threatens to disturb the peace of the 
Balkans, is based upon the expansion of Servia under 
his auspices. When King Milan declared war on 
Bulgaria in 1885, it was with shouts of" Dusan " that 

his soldiers set out from Belgrade, 

272 



CHARACTER OF DUSAN. 273 

Stephen Dusan was little more than twenty when 
his father's murder left him in undisturbed possession 
of the throne. Tall of stature and of a fine presence, 
he had early proved himself to be a leader of men. 
When quite a boy he had commanded a wing of the 
Servian army at the great battle which laid the Bul- 
garian Empire in the dust, and one account states 
that he slew the Bulgarian Czar with his own hand. 
The devotion of his followers to his person was only 
equalled by the terror of his enemies at his approach. 
When he once asked his nobles whether he should 
lead them against the Greeks or the Germans, they at 
once replied, " Whithersoever thou goest, most glorious 
prince, we will follow." The Byzantine chroniclers 
compare his career of conquest to a raging fire or the 
course of a river in flood. Even the wild Albanians 
were docile at his command, and rich and cultured 
communities like Ragusa were proud to own him as 
their protector. In his double capacity of conqueror 
and lawgiver, he presents more than one analogy with 
Napoleon, and his Empire rose and fell with a rapidity 
which recalls the meteoric flight of the great French 
Emperor. 

Dusan did not commence with any cut-and-dried 
plan for making himself master of the Eastern world. 
One of his conquests led to another, until at last he 
conceived the idea of making Constantinople itself 
the seat of his government and putting its feeble 
rulers beneath his feet. His finst and most pressing 
need was an outlet on the ^Egean, and the struggle 
between the Greek Empire and the Turks gave him 
an opportunity of gaining his object. Entering 

19 



274 THE ZENITH OF SERVIA UNDER STEPHEN DUSAN. 

Macedonia, he penetrated as far as the Gulf of Volo, 
and besieged the Emperor Andronicus III. in Salonica. 
Andronicus obtained peace by the sacrifice of most of 
the territory which Dusan had conquered. By the 
treaty of 134^0 the Servian monarch obtained such 
large acquisitions that his dominions stretched from 




fc^b* 



SERVIA UNDER DUSAN. 
C 1350. 

the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth and from the 
Adriatic to within a short distance of Adrianople. 
When it is remembered that, in addition to this huge 
tract of country, Bulgaria was practically under his 
control, it will be seen by a glance at the map that 



DUSArfs EMPIRE. 275 

he was master of the Balkan Peninsula from sea to 
sea. Here and there a few coast towns, like Salonica 
and Durazzo, held out against him, but the Byzantine 
possessions had shrunk to nothing as compared with 
his mighty realm. Filled with pride, the conqueror 
comported himself like an Eastern Emperor. He 
modelled his Court on that at Constantinople, dis- 
tributed honorary offices to his most distinguished 
generals, and created an order of merit which he 
called by the name of St. Stephen. But he had not 
learnt the great secret of keeping an empire together. 
He divided his dominions into provinces, each under 
the government of a powerful chieftain. In this 
arrangement it is easy to detect the cause of Servia's 
brief supremacy. So long as there was a strong man 
like Dusan at the head of this composite state, all 
went well ; but it needed no gift of prophecy to fore- 
see the inevitable dissensions which would break out 
whenever his iron hand was withdrawn. When it 
was attacked later on by an enemy, like the Turks, 
absolutely united under the authority of one man, the 
loosely constructed Servian Empire fell. 

John Cantacuzene, who had acted as Regent of the 
Greek Empire during the minority of young John 
Paleologus, usurped sovereign power in 1 341, and, 
finding no support at Constantinople, retreated to 
seek the aid of Dusan. Stephen received him in his 
Court at Pristina with the most elaborate ceremonial 
and the most profuse hospitality, but declined to 
assist his distinguished guest except upon his own 
terms. To his credit it must be said, that the Servian 
monarch magnanimously rejected the offer of the 



276 THE ZENITH OF SERI7A UNDER STEPHEN DUSAN. 

Greek Empress Anne, who professed herself willing 
to divide the Greek Empire with him, on condition 
that he would rid her and her son of their hated rival. 
She even sent him the poison for the purpose, and 
urged him to use it. But Dusan 's wife, Helena, 
pleaded for the life of the guest. Her husband made 
an alliance with Cantacuzene and assisted him for a 
time ; but mutual suspicions soon alienated the allies, 
and Cantacuzene did not hesitate to invoke the aid of 
the Turks against his former host. At this, Dusan 
changed sides in the civil war, and joined his arms to 
those of the Empress Anne and the Bulgarians. In 
1346 he for the first time adopted the Imperial title 
— Imperial power he had long enjoyed — and styled 
himself " Emperor of the Greeks and Servians." 
Upon his son he conferred the title of King or Krai, 
which he and his predecessors had borne since the 
days of Stephen Nemanja. On his head he wore a 
tiara ; on his coins, minted at Cattaro, we see him 
seated on a throne, with the orb surmounted by a 
cross in his hand. In the East the dignity of an 
Emperor implies as its ecclesiastical counterpart that 
of a Patriarch. Dusan assembled the clergy of his 
Empire together with that of Bulgaria in a Synod, 
and bade them elect an independent Servian Patri- 
arch. Servia was free in things spiritual no less than in 
things temporal from the Greeks. The first duty of the 
Patriarch was to crown his sovereign as Emperor at 
Skopje, in the midst of a brilliant gathering. So 
great was his fame, that the proud Commonwealth of 
Venice conferred the title of patrician upon him. 
The conclusion of the civil war, which had rent the 



WAR WITH HUXGARY. 2^ 

Byzantine Empire in twain, checked the successes of 
Dusan over the Greeks. Cantacuzene won back from 
him a considerable part of Macedonia, and in 1350 
negotiations for peace began. Cantacuzene demanded 
Thessaly in addition to what he had already recovered. 
But Dusan refused to be bound by these proposals, 
which he had at first felt inclined to accept. Once 
more the rivalry of Cantacuzene and young Paleologus, 
whose guardian he was, gave the Servian Emperor a 
chance of recovering his territory. But the arrival of 
a Turkish army at Adrianople altered the whole con- 
dition of affairs, and from that moment to the last 
year of his reign he engaged in no further campaigns 
against the Greeks. 

On the West, however, he found ample compensa- 
tion for his later reverses in the East. Louis the 
Great of Hungary was anxious to avenge the defeat 
of his father by the Servians under Stephen VII., and 
was filled with jealousy of Dusan's power. In spite 
of Venetian intervention — for peace was the greatest 
interest of the commercial Republic of St. Mark — 
Louis crossed the Save and took up a position in 
Bosnia. Dusan suddenly appeared with a large army 
in front of the Hungarian King, who retreated beyond 
the Save with considerable loss. In order to keep 
his dominions secure from a repetition of this attack, 
Dusan pretended to have qualms of conscience, and 
sent a royal messenger to the Pope with fulsome 
promises. But as soon as he found that the King of 
Hungary was quiet, he threw off the mask and dis- 
avowed all intention of becoming a faithful son of 
Rome. One result of his victory over Louis was 



278 THE ZENITH OF SEE VIA UNDER STEPHEN BUS AN. 

the incorporation of Belgrade, previously a part of 
the Hungarian kingdom, with Servia. Another was 
his subjugation of Bosnia, which had maintained its 
independence under rulers of its own, called Bans, for 
many years, and had then fallen under the sway of 
Hungary. In 1350 it passed to Dusan, together with 
the sister province of the Herzegovina, which had in 
early days been Servian, but had been united with 
Bosnia since 1325. This rounded off the great 
Empire over which Dusan reigned. The zenith of 
Servia was attained. 

But the Servian Emperor knew that peace had her 
victories no less than war. Constant as were his 
campaigns, he yet found time to draw up a complete 
code of law for his subjects, based upon the national 
characteristics of the Southern Slavs. This code, 
promulgated in 1349, is still preserved, and throws a 
curious light upon the manners and customs of the 
Serbs at this period. As becomes a " Christian 
Macedonian Czar " — so the lawgiver styles himself 
in the preamble — Stephen begins by prescribing for 
the good* government of the Servian Church. " Latin 
heretics " are to be sent to work in " the deepest 
mines " or else banished, and any " Latin Priest " 
found proselytising is sentenced to death. Provision 
is made for the establishment of an ecclesiastical 
court, and civil marriages are strictly prohibited. We 
recognise at once the aristocratic basis of mediaeval 
Servian society in the unequal positions of nobles 
and peasants in the eye of the law. To kill a peasant 
is a much slighter offence than to kill a noble ; to 
pluck a chieftain's beard means the loss of a hand ; 



DUSAiVs CODE. 



179 



to pluck that of a common man costs nothing more 
than a small fine. But the Czar was careful to 
protect the merchants who travelled through his 
dominions. None of his subjects, however exalted 




FORTRESS OF USICA. 

in station, might detain a trader by force or take his 
money, and the Czar's officials were bidden to grant 
every facility for the sale of goods. This was quite 
in keeping with the enlightened policy which attracted 
the merchants of Ragusa to the country by mineral 



28o THE ZENITH OF SERV/A UNDER STEPHEN DUSAN. 

concessions, and thus introduced the superior culture 
of the Dalmatian coast-towns far into the interior 
of the Peninsula. When a wandering trader arrived 
in a Servian village at night, it was the bounden duty 
of the chief man to give him food and lodging in his 
house or else pay for all that he required outside. 
And if robbers fell upon him, he could make com- 
plaint to the Czar, who would exact punishment from 
the guardians of the peace. The most stringent 
enactments for the suppression of brigandage are to 
be found in the code ; the chief inhabitants in each 
town and village are held personally responsible for 
the public safety. Drunken assaults were punished 
with a sound beating, and coiners of false money were 
burnt alive. Judges were appointed to go on circuit 
throughout the land, and advocates forbidden to 
"abuse the plaintiff's attorney." In short, the great 
Czar had an eye for the smallest as well as the most 
important affairs of state, and his code, stern though 
it was, shows that his country was governed accord- 
ing to fixed principles and not by arbitrary rules. 
The law-JDOok, or Zakonik, of 1349 was far superior 
to the jurisprudence of most Eastern countries of that 
period. 

Dusan was not only a lawgiver, but a patron of 
literature and learning. He increased the number of 
schools and welcomed foreign scholars at his court, 
as well as native historians like Archbishop Danilo, 
who has painted his portrait in flattering colours. 
Like his father before him, he encouraged the build- 
ing of churches and the multiplication of religious 
books. His finances must have been well managed, 



THE MARCH ON CONSTANTINOPLE. 2b I 

for he could afford to have French, German, and 
Italian mercenaries in his pay, to whom his successes 
were not a little due. 

Meanwhile the Byzantine Empire was tottering 
before the attacks of the Turks, who had crossed 
into Europe and were rapidly reducing the Imperial 
dominions to a single city. Dusan knew the weak- 
ness of the Greeks and the strength of the Turks, 
and conceived the bold idea of ousting the former from 
their capital and reigning there himself as Eastern 
Emperor. He believed that no other sovereign could 
beat back the tide of Ottoman invasion, and he 
looked with longing eyes on Constantinople, then as 
now the cynosure of Slavonic aspirations. It was 
a magnificent scheme, and had it succeeded the whole 
course of European history would have been changed. 
New blood would have been infused into the decrepit 
frame of the Eastern Empire, and a strong and 
vigorous race might have held the city of Constan- 
tine against the Ottoman foe. Dusan made his pre- 
parations on a scale commensurate with his great 
enterprise. He summoned his chieftains together 
from every part of his vast realm on the feast of 
St. Michael, 1356. First of all, the holy festival was 
kept with prayer and praise ; then the Czar took the 
banner of the Servian Empire in his hand and ad- 
dressed the throng. The utmost enthusiasm greeted 
his appeal, and an army of 80,000 men was soon at 
his disposal. Never before had a Servian prince 
commanded so large a force or started on a cam- 
paign with such hopes of success. The feeble Paleo- 
logus, who occupied the Byzantine throne, made little 



282 THE ZENITH OF SERVIA UNDER STEPHEN DUSAN. 

attempt at resistance. Thrace with Adrianople fell ; 
the advanced guard of the Serb host reached the out- 
skirts of Constantinople. There was treachery within 
the gates, for a considerable portion of the garrison 
was known to side with Dusan. But, just at the 
moment when the prize was within his grasp, the 
Servian conqueror succumbed himself. On Decem- 
ber 18, 1356, he was suddenly seized with a violent 
fever at the village of Diavoli, some forty miles from 
Constantinople, and expired the same night in the 
arms of his trusty comrades. His sudden death has 
been attributed to poison, secretly administered by 
the instructions of Paleologus. There is no direct 
proof of this theory, but the event certainly benefited 
the Greek Emperor, and the use of poisons was fre- 
quent at the Byzantine Court. Cut off in the full 
possession of all his powers — for he was not yet fifty 
— Dusan might, with his vigorous constitution, have 
had a long and glorious career before him. The ex- 
pedition, which he had led, came to an end with his 
death. Constantinople was saved from the Serbs ; 
and instead of following their sovereign in triumph 
through the gates of the Imperial city, the sorrowing 
chieftains escorted his dead body to the monastery 
which he had built at Prisrend. The might of the 
Servian Empire lay buried with him. The decline of 
the nation, which he had made so great, had already 
begun. 



III. 

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVIA. 

(1356—1459.) 

BEFORE he died, Dusan had made his generals 
swear allegiance to his only son, Uros V., at that 
time a lad of nineteen. But they did not keep their 
word for long. Weak in character and pacific by 
disposition, the young Czar was not the man to keep 
in order the turbulent grandees whom the strong arm 
of his father had subordinated to the throne. The 
system of dividing the Empire into provinces, each 
under a chief of its own, which Dusan had adopted, 
lessened the authority of his successor. Domestic 
quarrels, as usual, were the bane of the Servian Court, 
and the worst foes of young Uros were his mother 
and his uncle. The recent conquests of Dusan had 
not been thoroughly welded together with the older 
Servian lands, and were naturally the first to go. 
Thessaly declared itself independent ; the warlike 
Albanians, who had recognised Dusan as their Prince, 
broke away from the Serb Empire after his death ; 

the vassal state of Bulgaria recovered its former posi- 

283 



284 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVlA. 

tion ; Belgrade, the future capital of Servia, was re- 
captured by the King of Hungary ; Bosnia, under 
the vigorous sway of Stephen Tvartko, the ablest of 
all her rulers, severed her connection with the Serbs, 
and Tvartko assumed the rank and style of royalty. 
A little later, in 1376, we even find him proclaiming 
himself " King of Servia, Bosnia, and the sea-coast," 
and avowing his intention of reviving the glories of 
Dusan. 

Meanwhile, to the foes within there were added the 
foes without. The Turks had occupied Adrianople 
in 1360, and to mark the permanent character of 
their occupation, had transformed the seat of govern- 
ment to that city. They thus became near neigh- 
bours of the Serbs, who formed' an alliance with their 
old enemy, Paleologus, against the common danger. 
The combined Greek and Servian army was defeated 
under the walls of Adrianople, and the battlefield 
retains to this day the name of the " Servian rout." 
This ignominious reverse increased the insubordina- 
tion of the chieftains. Recognising that their Czar 
could not protect them, they resolved to protect them- 
selves and each set up for himself in his own province, 
heedless of the central authority. One of their num- 
ber, bolder than his fellows and forgetful of the 
benefits which Dusan had showered upon him, deter- 
mined to depose his benefactor's son. Voukacin — for 
such was the usurper's name — wormed his way into 
the young Czar's confidence, and obtained from him 
the government of Dalmatia as a reward for his 
counsels. Uros refused to believe that a relative 
and a friend could foster designs against his life and 



THE TURKS APPROACH. 285 

throne, and turned a deaf ear to the warnings of his 
courtiers. The arrival of Voukacin before his palace 
at Pristina at the head of an army found him unpre- 
pared to resist. The son of Dusan fled almost alone 
from his capital towards the mountains of Bosnia, 
but perished on the way by the hand, or at any rate 
the command, of his rival, in 1367. Such was the 
inglorious end of the great Serb conqueror's son and 
heir. Within little more than ten years after Dusan's 
death his Empire was dismembered and his child 
a fugitive. 

The usurper did not long enjoy the fruits of his 
crime. The Turks, under the able leadership of 
Amurath I., one of the greatest generals of his time, 
continued their career of conquest. Their advance 
in the direction of Servia aroused Voukacin's fears 
for the safety of his throne. Summoning the chief- 
tains together, he implored them to forget their dis- 
sensions and join him in a campaign against the 
Turkish conqueror. An army nearly as large as that 
which had followed Dusan on his last expedition was 
collected, and Voukacin believed himself to be the 
leader of a new crusade. At first his efforts were 
successful, and Amurath received a severe check on 
the spot, where a few years earlier the Serbs had been 
routed with such loss. But in the dead of night 
Amurath surprised the Servian camp and completely 
destroyed the army of the Christians. The flower of 
the Serb nobility perished either by the scimitars 
of the Turks or in the waters of the river Marica. 
Voukacin, after fighting with desperate courage, fled 
with a handful of retainers, one of whom murdered 



286 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SEE VIA. 

him for the sake of the gold chain which he wore. 
The news of the Servian defeat excited the greatest 
alarm all over Christendom. The Pope lamented 
loudly that nothing could withstand the onward 
march of the Turks. The Servians thought that 
the sole chance of their safety lay in the election of 
Lazar, a connection by marriage of Dusan's dynasty, 
in whose wars he had served with great distinction. 
Lazar, the last of the Servian Czars, ascended the 
throne in 1 371 under gloomy circumstances. He did 
not deem it prudent to attack the victorious Turks 
until he had had time to recruit his scattered forces, 
and so quietly looked on while Macedonia gradually 
fell into their hands. But ' the warlike King of 
Hungary, instead of assisting his brother of Servia 
against the Ottoman armies, seized the opportunity 
of Servia's weakness to attack him. For the second 
time the Serbs repulsed his attempt ; but there was 
little glory or satisfaction to be won from such a 
triumph at a time when all the Christian Powers 
of the East should have been banded together 
against the Crescent. When in 1386 the Turks in- 
vaded Servia and captured Nisch, the key of the 
whole country, Lazar found himself without allies, 
and, imitating the craven example of the Greek 
Emperor, purchased a disgraceful peace by promising 
to pay an annual tribute and to provide a thousand 
mercenaries for the Turkish armies. It was, indeed, 
a change since the days of Dusan. 

But at last the Christian states of the Balkans, 
when too late, discovered that they must unite 
against the Ottoman power. Tvartko, King of 



BATTLE OF KOSSOVO. 28 J 

Bosnia, sent a detachment of soldiers- to aid the 
Serbs ; the Bulgarians created a diversion in favour 
of their neighbours ; the Prince of the Zeta joined 
with the Servian monarch. In the fastnesses of the 
Black Mountain, where the Turks were in the coming 
centuries to receive so many fatal reverses, a body 
of Albanians and Serbs utterly routed the Ottoman 
force. Amurath I., who was celebrating his marriage 
in Asia Minor when the news reached him, vowed 
vengeance. Hurrying back to Europe, he collected 
an enormous army and marched against the Serbs. 
The battle, which was to decide for five centuries the 
fate of the Balkan Peninsula, was fought on the plain 
of Kossovo, the " field of blackbirds," as it is called in 
Serb, from the flocks of those creatures which fre- 
quent it. Kossovo is at the present day a part of the 
Turkish Empire, and gives its name to an Ottoman 
vilayet or province. Shut in by a chain of mountains, 
and of vast extent, the plain seemed intended by 
nature for an Armageddon of nations. Around this 
spot, the Waterloo of Balkan freedom, clusters a 
whole literature of patriotic ballads, from which it is 
no easy task to discern the true story of that fatal 
day. " Amurath," says one of the national bards, 
" had so many men that a horseman could not ride 
from one wing of his army to the other in a fort- 
night ; the plain of Kossovo was one mass of steel ; 
horse stood against horse, man against man ; the 
spears form a thick forest ; the banners obscure the 
sun, there was no space for a drop of water to fall 
between them." On the other side Serbs, Bosniaks, 
and Albanians were banded together in the common 



20rf THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVIA. 

cause under Lazar's leadership. On the morning of 
June 15, 1389, the battle began. Amurath had hesi- 
tated at the last moment to attack the allied host, 
but a dream, in which the angel of victory had 
appeared to his most trusted counsellor and bade 
him " conquer the infidels," confirmed his wavering 
mind. The struggle was furious on both sides, and 
Lazar held his own against the Ottoman chivalry. 
But there was treachery in the Servian camp. Vouk 
Brankovic, to whom one wing of the Servian army 
had been entrusted, had long been jealous of his 
sovereign. It was said that he had already arranged 
with Amurath to betray his' master, and had been 
promised the crown of Servia as a reward. The 
Turkish victory was the result of this " great be- 
trayal." At a critical moment, when the future of 
the day was still undecided, the traitor turned his 
horse's head and rode off the field, followed by his 
detachment of 1 2,000 men. Lazar in vain attempted 
to sustain the contest against fearful odds. Slowly 
but surely the Turkish numbers told, and all was 
confusion in the Servian ranks. Lazar's horse 
stumbled and fell, and his rider expired beneath the 
blows of the Turkish soldiers. With him his nine 
brothers-in-law and the flower of the Servian aris- 
tocracy perished. The victory of the Turks would 
have been complete but for the death of their own 
sovereign in the hour of his triumph. 

Amurath, it is said, was walking over the battle- 
field after the fight was over, when a wounded Serb, 
seeing the Sultan approach, crawled to his feet and 
pretended to make obeisance to him. Suddenly 



AMU RATH ASSASSINATED. 289 

springing up, the man drew a dagger from under his 
garments and plunged it into the conqueror's breast. 
The Sultan had received his death wound, and his 
assassin, Milosh Obilic, after a desperate struggle, 
was slain by Amurath's guards. Another version of 
the Sultan's death is given by the Servian bards. 
According to them, Milosh, taunted with cowardice 
by the traitor Vouk on the eve of battle, had vowed 
to prove his loyalty by his conduct next day. Early 
in the morning he visited the Turkish camp, and 
prayed to be admitted as a deserter to the Sultan's 
tent. His request was granted, whereupon he smote 
the Turkish commander to the heart. To this day 
his name is held in honour by the national poets, 
while that of Vouk Brankovic has been handed down 
to perpetual infamy. But the assassination of Amu- 
rath I. had little practical result ; for his son Bajazet I. 
was proclaimed his successor on the field of battle, 
and showed by the murder of his brother that there 
would be no division in the Turkish ranks. As for 
the traitor Vouk, he was poisoned a few years later 
by the Sultan's orders. 

The battle of Kossovo has never been forgotten in 
the lands of the Southern Slavs. The most mournful 
songs of the Servian muse are inspired by the sad 
memories of that day. Whenever they have risen 
against the Turk, the cry of " revenge for Kossovo " 
has been emblazoned on their banners, and the Serbs 
of Montenegro still wear mourning on their caps for 
that fatal defeat. The Servian Empire had fallen for 
ever, though the Turks permitted rulers, or " despots," 

of Servia to exercise nominal power for seventy years 

20 



29O THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVIA. 

longer. Many noble families fled to the fastnesses of 
Montenegro, and maintained their faith and freedom 
from the Ottoman conquerors amid the impenetrable 
recesses of the Black Mountain. Others migrated 
to Hungary, and formed those Serb colonies on the 
banks of the river Theiss from which, much later, 
succour came to Servia in her struggle for indepen- 
dence. A third body of emigrants found a home in 
Bosnia, whose rulers had not yet fallen beneath the 
sway of the all-conquering Turks. 

The Sultan Bajazet did not pursue his conquests 
farther after the battle of Kossovo. His own army 
had suffered severely, and he permitted Stephen 
Lazarevic, son of the dead Czar, to reign over Servia 
on condition that he became his vassal. Stephen 
promised to pay an annual tribute from the Servian 
silver mines, to relinquish the whole of Macedonia, 
to put at the service of his suzerain a body of Servian 
troops under the command of his younger brother 
Vouk, and to give to Bajazet the hand of his sister 
Mileva. The vanquished nation had no option but 
to accept these terms, and Stephen faithfully kept his 
promise as long as he lived. We find him fighting 
by the side of the Turks at the great battle of Angora 
in 1402, where Bajazet became the prisoner of Timour 
the Tartar. His intervention in favour of his Turkish 
brother-in-law at a critical moment at the great battle 
of Nicopolis in 1396 riveted the chains of the Bul- 
garians ; his subjects joined the Turks in their attack 
upon Miretschea the Old of Wallachia. Thus, 
such strength as Servia still had was used on the 
side of her foes. Even more fatal was the marriage 



SERVIAN ADMINISTRATION. 29 1 

of Stephen's sister to Bajazet, for it provided the 
Turks with a claim, which they afterwards put for- 
ward, to the Servian throne. It was a humiliating 
position for Stephen and his people ; but thus only 
could they retain even a shadow of independence. 

The dissensions which broke out between the sons 
of Bajazet after his death, gave a further respite to 
Servia and Bosnia. Stephen availed himself of this 
opportunity to improve the internal condition of his 
country. Attempts have been made to depict him 
as the founder of constitutional government in Servia, 
and he is said to have created two legislative chambers, 
one composed of chiefs or nobles, the other represen- 
tative of the people. This is an obvious anachronism ; 
but it is clear that he divided his servants into three 
classes. The first class formed a sort of cabinet, 
which conferred with him in an inner room, and dis- 
cussed the affairs of the realm ; the second, in an 
adjoining department, acted as secretaries, and issued 
the orders of their superiors to the third class, whose 
duty it was to carry out those orders at once. It is 
upon this fact that the theory of a Servian constitu- 
tion in the early years of the fifteenth century has 
been based. He secured the restoration of Belgrade 
by the Hungarians and made it his residence, 
strengthening it with fortifications and adorning it 
with fine buildings. Like most rulers of his house, 
he was a friend of the clergy, and his benevolence 
and simple life excited the admiration of monastic 
chroniclers. 

But the mutual quarrels of Bajazet's heirs soon 
tempted the Serbs to intervene. Stephen's younger 



292 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVIA. 

brother Vouk believed that, by making himself useful 
to one of the Turkish factions, he could obtain the 
Servian throne as a reward for himself. But he com- 
mitted the mistake of choosing the losing" side. The 
victorious faction visited his misdeeds upon his inno- 
cent brother, no less than on himself. A new Turkish 
invasion of Servia under Moussa in 141 3 led to the 
defeat of the Serbs in the plain of Verbica and 
the loss of more territory on the upper waters of 
the Morava. But Moussa's rival, Mohammed I., en- 
listed the Servian " despot " on his side, and the 
latter assisted him to subdue all the Turkish factions 
and make himself Sultan. Mindful of the benefits 
which he had received from Stephen, he restored to 
the Serbs the territory which Moussa had so recently 
taken away, and confirmed Stephen in his govern- 
ment. But the tribute continued, and too late the 
Serbs discovered that by their action in helping 
Mohammed they had restored unity and strength to 
the Turkish Empire. In their desire to obtain a 
temporary advantage, they had permanently injured 
their own prospects of independence. 

This became evident when Amurath II. became 
Sultan on Mohammed's death. Stephen Lazarevic 
had died in 1427 without heirs, and had named George 
Brankovic, son of the traitor of Kossovo, as his suc- 
cessor. But Amurath II. at once claimed a prior 
right to the Servian throne as the grandson of the 
Servian princess Mileva, whose marriage with the 
Sultan Bajazet had been one of the conditions of 
peace fifty years earlier. The Serbs refused to 
acknowledged his pretensions, and he replied by 



SEMENDRIA BUILT. 2Q% 

invading their country. His success was not, however, 
so complete as he had expected, and he accordingly 
offered his protection to Servia and demanded the 
hand of George Brankovic's daughter in marriage. 
But this sacrifice did not secure peace for long. 
Anxious to conquer the rich kingdom of Hungary, 
Amurath saw that he must occupy Servia first, more 
especially as Brankovic had lately made an alliance 
with the King of Hungary and had built a strong 
fortress at Semendria on the Danube for the use of 
himself and his new ally. Amurath requested that 
this stronghold should be given up to him ; and, when 
Brankovic refused, overran the country and placed 
garrisons in the principal towns. A Turkish mosque 
was built in Krusevac, the famous residence of many 
a Servian monarch ; Brankovic, unable to obtain aid 
from Hungary, which was at that moment distracted 
by internal dissensions and a terrible epidemic, fled to 
Ragusa, where an inscription on one of the gates tells 
to this day how he " came in with all his treasures." 
Servia in 1440 was entirely in the Turkish power, and 
Amurath appointed one of his followers to govern it 
as Pasha in his absence. Yet just at that moment 
the heroic efforts of a foreign soldier procured a further 
brief respite for the unhappy Serbs. This was John 
Hunyad, the celebrated " white knight of Wallachia," 
whom the Christians of the East looked upon as a 
deliverer, while the hosts of Islam believed that he 
was none other than the evil spirit. At the head of 
a combined Servian and Hungarian army, Hunyad 
drove Amurath from the Danube and raised the siege 
of Belgrade, at that time a Hungarian fortress, which 



294 The decline and fall of servia. 

the Turks had besieged for six weary months. The 
King of Hungary joined in the campaign, and one 
success after another attended the march of the allies. 
It was well nigh the last triumph that Servian arms 
ever won over the Turks till the day of awakening 
came in our own century. The severe winter, most 
valuable of all allies in a Balkan campaign, alone pre- 
vented the utter annihilation of the Turkish army. 
Amurath begged for peace, and it was signed at 
Szegedin in the middle of 1444. Hostilities were 
to cease for ten years, Servia was evacuated by the 
Turks and once more governed by its native prince. 
Never since the defeat of Kossovo had the Serbs 
enjoyed so much independence. 

But it was not for long. In spite of the warnings 
and entreaties of the Servian ruler, the impetuous 
King of Hungary tore up the treaty almost as soon 
as it had been signed, and attacked the Turks. In 
this brief campaign, which was ended by the over- 
whelming victory of the Turks at Varna in November, 
1444, George Brankovic took no part ; for he foresaw 
from the £rst the folly, and deplored the treachery, of 
this wanton breach of the newly signed peace. But 
he ultimately suffered even more than the Hungarian 
people by this defeat, which they had provoked. For 
Varna speedily completed what Kossovo had begun. 
The Turks made no difference between Magyars and 
Serbs when the battle was over. Hunyad once more 
came to the assistance of the latter, and kept Amurath 
in check for a time, and Amurath II.'s successor, 
Mohammed II., made a temporary peace with Servia 
until he had captured Constantinople. The fall of 



JOHN HUN Y AD. 295 

the Imperial city in 1453 paved the way for the final 
annexation of the Servian territory to the Turkish 
dominions. Semendria, the residence of George 
Brankovic, was the first object of Mohammed's attack. 
The Ottoman artillery soon left nothing but a heap 
of ruins to mark the spot, and the Servian prince was 
once more a fugitive. Again the heroic Hunyad 
came forward as the champion of Christendom. 
Again he saved Belgrade, the " City of the Holy 
War," as the Turks called it. Serbs and Magyars 
fought side by side in its defence with the courage of 
despair, and a brave Franciscan monk, crucifix in 
hand, urged them to protect the outpost of Chris- 
tianity. A battle on the Danube gained Hunyad 
access to the citadel ; a successful sally from the walls 
completed the rout of the Turks. Mohammed II. was 
wounded, while thousands of Ottoman corpses covered 
the outskirts of Belgrade. Leaving his baggage and 
artillery in the hands of the gallant garrison, the 
Sultan retreated to Adrianople, glad to escape with 
his life, which he owed to the devotion of his body- 
guard. George Brankovic re-entered into possession 
of his country, and died shortly afterwards in 1457 
at the great age of ninety-one. Servian independence 
survived him little more than a year, for in 1459 the 
Turks formally annexed the land, for which a long 
line of warrior princes had striven so well. 

The final blow to Servian freedom was dealt by 
one of Servia's princes. The old story of domestic 
dissension repeated itself on the death of George 
Brankovic. His widow and three sons, to whom 
he had conjointly entrusted the government, soon 



2^6 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SERVtA. 

quarrelled. Lazar, the youngest of the three, poisoned 
his mother and expelled his brothers, in order to 
reign alone, while he promised to pay an annual 
tribute of twenty thousand gold pieces to the Sultan. 
But Mohammed II. was not long content with this 
partial sovereignty. When Lazar died in 1458, he 
resolved to incorporate Servia with the Turkish 
Empire. There was no longer any obstacle to the 
accomplishment of his plan. Hunyad, who might 
have prevented it, was now dead ; the Serbs had lost 
all heart, and were ready to purchase peace at any 
price after the constant struggles of the last seventy 
years ; they had no leader and no enthusiasm. Lazar's 
widow, Helena, tried to preserve the political inde- 
pendence of her country by offering it as a fief to the 
Papacy. But the Serbs declared that they would 
rather be Turkish than Roman Catholic. The same 
effect was produced in Bosnia by the king's proposal 
to place his throne under the protection of the Pope, 
and to form, by a matrimonial alliance with Servia, 
one united Catholic monarchy out of the two Serb 
states. There too the people, mindful of the terrible 
persecutions which they had suffered at the hands 
of the Popes, welcomed the Turks as deliverers. Thus 
theological bitterness, alike in Servia and in Bosnia, 
contributed to the subjugation of both lands beneath 
the rule of the Sultan. The Serb nobles invited a' 
Turkish magnate, brother of the Grand Vizier, to be 
their lord, and when Helena put him in prison, threw 
themselves into the Sultan's arms. Semendria opened 
its gates to him ; city after city followed its example ; 
Helena was allowed to leave the country, and in 1459 



FALL OF SERVIA. 297 

Servia had ceased to exist as a separate state. Four 
years later the last King of Bosnia lost his life and 
throne, and his dominions, too, became a Turkish 
province. In Montenegro alone a handful of moun- 
taineers preserved the vestiges of Servian freedom. 
The people of the old Servian kingdom had either 
bowed their necks to the conqueror or migrated 
across the Danube to join the colonies founded in 
Hungary after the battle of Kossovo, where they 
maintained in a foreign land their language and 
customs under a chief of their own. 

Thus fell the once mighty Servian state. Lack 
of unity, alike in politics and religion, was the chief 
cause of its fall. The feudal system, which allowed 
the great nobles almost royal power in their own 
dominions, weakened the central authority and 
rendered it liable to defeat at the hands of a Turkish 
autocrat, who took care to remove every rival out 
of his path. It was only when a strong man, like 
Dusan, was on the throne, or when, as happened after 
the death of Bajazet, a civil war broke out among the 
Turks, that Servia was secure. The mutual jealousies 
of the Christian rulers of Servia and Hungary hindered, 
except on rare occasions, a really effective alliance for 
the common cause. The Serbs, firmly attached to 
the Greek Church, suspected the Magyars, who came 
to assist them, of desiring to introduce the Roman 
Catholic faith. Throughout the history of the Balkans 
this distinction of creeds proved a real obstacle to a 
political union. It was so in Servia, it was so in 
Bosnia, and we shall see it to be the same in Monte- 
negro and Albania. Well organised, strongly united 



298 The decline and fall of servia. 

in their devotion to their leader and their religion, the 
Turks had little difficulty in overthrowing the brave 
Servian nation, which at one moment had seemed 
likely to combine all the Balkan lands under a Czar 
of its own, with Constantinople as its capital. 




IV. 



SERVIA UNDER THE TURKS. 



(1459— 1804.) 



With the subjugation of Servia in 1459, the 
country entered upon the long period of unbroken 
Turkish domination. Its geographical situation on 
the high road to Hungary made it a possession of 
the utmost importance to the Sultans in their con- 
tinual wars with the Magyars, and for this reason 
they kept a much tighter hold upon it than upon 
Moldavia and Wallachia. In name, as well as in 
fact, Servia formed an integral part of the Ottoman 
Empire, and not the faintest traces of independence 
remained. The peasants were compelled to work on 
the meadows of the Sultan round Constantinople in 
summer ; the lands of the old nobility were parcelled 
out among the Turkish spahi, to whom the natives 
had to yield personal services no less than pecuniary 
payments. No Serb was permitted to wear a weapon 
— a great hardship to a nation which had always 
gone about its daily business armed. So strictly was 

this injunction carried out, that, whenever we hear 

299 



300 SERF/A UNDER THE TURKS. 

of a peasant revolt, we find the insurgents equipped 
with nothing more formidable than long staves. Their 
horses were all taken from" them, and every five 
years they had to pay a tribute of youths, who went 
to swell the number of the Janissaries. Thus the 
strength and rising hope of the nation contributed 
to the aggrandisement of the Turk. A traveller, who 
visited the country in the sixteenth century, describes 
the once haughty Serbs as 1 " poor, miserable captives, 
none of whom dare lift up his head." And no wonder. 
Obeying the precept of the Koran, which ordained 
upon the faithful to " press the unbelievers until they 
pay poll-tax and humble themselves before thee," 
the sultans extorted this hated exaction from the 
Christian rayah on pain of death or imprisonment. 
Every male from the seventh year upwards was com- 
pelled to pay it, and the receipts for payment acquired 
a double value as tokens of submission and as free- 
passes. Only when a Serb had paid the capitation- 
tax was he a free man. 

A Turkish pasha presided over the whole Pashalik 
of Belgrade, as it was now called, which embraced 
most of the Servian kingdom. But there were still a 
few Servian districts where, as in Bulgaria and the 
Herzegovina, Christian chiefs of tried devotion to the 
Sultan were permitted to exercise hereditary rights 
of overlordship. These districts enjoyed special 
privileges. No Turkish horse might enter them — a 
great benefit, for the proverb says that "where the 
Turk's horse treads, no grass will ever grow." Else- 
where, however, the Turkish spahi received tithes of 
all the produce of field or vineyard or beehive, and 



THE CHURCH. 3OI 

demanded a tax from every married couple, rich or 
poor, while some villages were the direct property of 
the Sultan. The pasha had the right of making the 
villagers work for him on certain days of the year 
without remuneration, and levied an annual sum from 
the land. Justice was administered by the kadi for 
Christians and Mussulmans alike, while a Turkish 
mollah had his seat at Belgrade. 

As in Bulgaria, so in Servia, the Turks did not 
attempt to root out Christianity from the country 
which they had conquered. They long permitted the 
Serfs to elect their own patriarch, who resided at 
Ipek ; but in the middle of the last century it was 
considered more politic to have as head of the Serb 
Church some one who was entirely under Turkish 
control. The Greek patriarch, who resided at Con- 
stantinople, was accordingly entrusted with the office, 
and from that time forward he managed the ecclesias- 
tical affairs of the Servian Christians and sent Greek 
bishops to live among them. For Servia this change 
was a great blow. The one department of public 
life in which they had retained the right to conduct 
their own business in their own way, was henceforth 
in the hands of foreigners, who had more sympathy 
with the Turks than with their flock. For the bishop 
owed his appointment to the former, while he had to 
raise the money to pay for it from the latter. The 
proceedings of the Phanariote clergy in Bulgaria found 
their parallel in Servia. The Greek bishops were 
quite as oppressive to the struggling peasantry as the 
Turkish officials. Not only did they charge a heavy 
sum for every priest, whom they inducted, but they 



302 SERVIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

levied a chimney-tax on every household. In short, all 
the worst features of the Turkish administrative system 
prevailed ; the civil, ecclesiastical, and judicial posts 
were all bought and sold, and- the purchase-money 
ultimately wrung from the unhappy natives. To 
crown all, no Serb might avenge an insult, committed 
by a Turk, but when smitten on one cheek, meekly 
turned the other also. No wonder that the native 
population avoided the towns, where their oppressors 
lived, and remained in the country, where Turks rarely 
came. Distinct and apart, the two nations, con- 
querors and conquered, lived thus for nearly four 
centuries, till at last the moment came when Servia 
awoke from her long sleep and became once more 
free. 

Some efforts were made during this long period 
to throw off the yoke. There were times when it 
seemed as if the Serb race was on the point of re- 
covering its lost liberties. But such impulses usually 
came from without rather than from within. The 
Serbs, who remained behind in their native country, 
were too- cowed to rise, while if they had had the' 
spirit, they would still have lacked the arms necessary 
for a successful rising. Occasionally the more daring 
of them seized weapons from the Turks and took to 
the mountains, where they became haiduks or brigands, 
and lived by the spoils of Turkish caravans during the 
spring and summer, seeking refuge in winter among 
their confederates in the villages. But such attempts 
as there were to drive out the Turks originated 
among those Serbs who had migrated over the 
Danube and settled in Hungary. 



THE SERBS IN HUNGARY. 303 

The Hungarian Serbs possess a history of their 
own, which belongs, however, rather to the story of 
Hungary than to that of Servia. But their expedi- 
tions with the Austrian and Magyar armies for the 
relief of their less fortunate fellow-countrymen deserve 
mention. The kings of Hungary permitted them to 
occupy under native chiefs, called " despots," the 
territory between the rivers Save and Drave and the 
Banat of Temesvar, and allowed them a measure of 
independence. The family of Brankovic continued 
to furnish them with rulers, with one brief interval, 
down to the year 1689, when the last of the race was 
thrown into prison by the Emperor Leopold, and 
another titular chief with the title of Voivode ap- 
pointed in his place. In 1707, it was thought prudent 
to deprive the Serb colonists of any leader round 
whom they could rally, and the Serb Patriarch of 
Carlovitz, in Lower Austria, was nominated as head 
of the emigrants. Meanwhile, they had not forgotten 
their old fatherland. One of their " despots " aided 
the King of Hungary in his campaign against the 
Turks in 1475, and the decisive battle of the cam- 
paign, which temporarily restored Belgrade to Hun- 
gary, was won by a brilliant charge of Serbs. Well 
had the "despot's" troops earned the title of the "Black 
Legion." On the death of their conqueror, Mohammed 
II., in 1 48 1, the Serbs had hopes of recovering their 
lost country, which a Turkish pretender was willing 
to restore in return for the support of Hungary 
against the new Sultan. But the King of Hungary 
had other schemes in view, and the chance, once 
offered, never recurred. At the memorable battle of 



304 SERVIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

Mohacs in 1526 the " Black Legion " in vain struggled 
to avert the defeat of the Hungarian arms, and the 
victory of the Turks led to a further migration of 
Serbs to Hungary, where they fought strenuously 
under the brave brothers Bakie against the legions of 
the Sultan, who had now invaded the Magyar king- 
dom. A Serb noble commanded the Hungarian 
cavalry in this war, and lost his life at the siege of 
Temesvar. About the same time an adventurer 
named Crinovic proclaimed himself " Czar of Servia," 
and hovered over the Servian frontiers, pillaging and 
burning every place within his reach. But, in spite 
of his high-sounding title, Crinovic was more of a 
brigand than a patriot, and his countrymen, oppressed 
though they were by the Turks, were not sorry when 
he fell. 

No change was effected in the condition of the 
Serb colonists, when Hungary came into the posses- 
sion of the House of Austria. They maintained their 
autonomy under a " despot," as before, and a treaty, 
concluded in 1577, confirmed their privileges. The 
Emperor by this document granted them certain 
districts on condition that they should occupy them 
as military colonies. After the treaty of Sitvatorlok 
in 1606, which marked the turning-point in the con- 
quering career of the Turks, the Servian emigrants 
were definitely merged in the Austrian dominions ; 
they fought for the Emperor in all his wars in 
Western Europe, but their customs, religion, and 
complete local autonomy still marked them off as a 
separate race from the rest of the Empire. They 
shared in the glory of having saved Vienna from the 



MIGRATION OF ARSENIUS. 305 

Turks in 1683, and the retreat of the enemy inspired 
the Servian " despot " with the hope of regaining the 
home of his ancestors. Belgrade and Nisch were 
won, and at last the Serb legion found itself fighting 
by the side of Austrian soldiers on the soil of Servia. 
It looked as if the Serb kingdom were about to 
revive. But it was no part of the Emperor Leopold's 
plan to re-establish the independent Servian state ; 
and, fearing lest the Serb " despot " should come 
to terms with the Turks, he put him under arrest, 
and invited Arsenius, the Serb Patriarch, to emi- 
grate from Ipek in Old Servia to his dominions. 
Arsenius came, and 37,000 families with him, to this 
new home beneath the wings of the Austrian double- 
eagle. Leopold renewed for the benefit of the new 
colonists all the privileges enjoyed by the old, and 
granted them not only religious liberty, but freedom 
from taxation. But Old Servia has not even yet 
recovered the effects of that great migration two 
centuries ago. The fierce Albanians, who have taken 
the place of the industrious Serbs, have never restored 
prosperity to that region. For Austria it was of no 
small political advantage to have the ecclesiastical 
head of the Serb race under her control. Even their 
persecution by the Jesuits did not shake the loyalty 
of the Serbs to the Emperor. 

The victories of Prince Eugene, who described the 
Serbs as his "best scouts, his lightest cavalry, his most 
trusted garrisons," drove the Turks out of Belgrade 
once more and gave a considerable portion of Servia 
to Austria ; but the ignominious treaty of Belgrade 
in 1739 restored all Servia with its capital to the 

2% 



306 SERVIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

Ottoman Empire. Again the hopes of the colonists 
had been dashed to the ground. Despairing of a 
return to Servia, and deprived by the Empress Maria 
Theresa of the privileges which they had hitherto 
enjoyed from the Austrian rulers, many of them 
emigrated to Russia in 1740, where a large and fertile 
tract of country was assigned to them on the banks 
of the Dnieper. No fewer than 100,000 settled in 
that region, and traces of this Serb colonisation are 
still to be found. Faithful to the memory of their 
fatherland, they gave to the towns which they had 
founded on Russian soil, the names of places which 
had once formed part of the Servian kingdom. 

The Serbs hoped great things from the advent 
of that philanthropic monarch, Joseph II., to the 
Austrian throne. Obradovic, the poet, implored 
him " to protect the Servian race, and turn thy face 
towards a people, dear to thy ancestors, towards 
unhappy Servia, which suffers miseries without 
number. Give us back," he cried, " our ancient 
heroes, our ancient country!" Had Joseph lived 
longer, the poet's prayer might have been granted. 
The Emperor made an alliance with Catherine of 
Russia for the purpose of driving the Turks out of 
the Balkan Peninsula, and so " avenging," as he 
phrased it, " humanity on those barbarians." The 
declaration of war in 1788 was greeted with 
transports of joy wherever the Servian tongue was 
spoken. From every side the Serbs flocked to the 
Imperial standard. Belgrade fell in 1789, Bosnia 
was in the hands of the Austrians, Albania and 
Macedonia were rising fast. Colonel Mihaljevic, in 



THE WAR OF 1 788. 307 

command of the emigrants, penetrated into the heart 
of Servia by mountain paths which no army had ever 
trod before ; Krusevac, the holy city of the Serbs, the 
residence of the old Prince Lazar, was captured, and 
its churches, used by the Turks as stables for cen- 
turies, were purified, and once again resounded with 
songs of praise. The hosts of Islam fled from the 
land ; it seemed, indeed, as if Servia's hour had come. 
But the partition of Turkey between Russia and 
Austria had aroused the usual jealousy of the other 
Powers, and the untimely death of Joseph II. in 1790, 
deprived the Christian subjects of Turkey of their 
protector. The outbreak of the French Revolution 
turned the thoughts of Austrian statesmen westward ; 
and, in their anxiety to check the movement in Paris, 
they forgot all about the Balkan races. By the treaty 
of Sistova, Servia was restored to the. Turks, and a 
Turkish Pasha once more took up his residence at 
Belgrade. 

But the results of the war of 1788 were not alto- 
gether lost. Servia had, indeed, been given back to the 
Turk, but the national spirit had been aroused. The 
Ottoman officials asked with amazement and alarm, 
what the Austrians had done to their once humble 
rayahsy whom they scarcely recognised in the dis- 
ciplined volunteers of the late campaign. The down- 
trodden peasants, who had cringed before a Turk 
as he rode along the highway, and lost all sense of 
manly independence under long years of oppression, 
had become men and patriots in the storm and stress 
of the brief Austrian war. Among the valleys and on 
the mountain peaks roamed the Jiaiduks ; their hands 



308 SERVIA UNDER THE TURKS. 

against the Turks, and the Turks' hands against 
them, but respected and protected by the people as 
friends and avengers. Servia had learnt by bitter 
experience the lesson that " those who would be free 
themselves must strike the blow." Too often had her 
hopes been disappointed by Austrian promises of 
deliverance ; too often had the land been won, only 
to be given back to the Turk. Less fortunate than 
their Bulgarian neighbours, they found no foreign 
nation to draw the sword on their behalf. For their 
restored independence they are indebted not to a 
Russian autocrat, but to one of their own peasants. 







V. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 



(1804— 1860.) 



At the beginning of the present century, the 
Turkish Pasha who governed Servia was Hadji 
Mustapha, a kind and humane ruler, who enjoyed 
great popularity with his Christian subjects. Under 
his beneficent sway the land had peace, trade 
flourished, and justice was fairly administered to 
all alike. The grateful people called the governor 
the " Mother of the Serbs," and it seemed as if his 
province would be the last to raise the standard of 
revolt. But the reforms of Selim III., by arousing 
the anger of the Janissaries against both the Sultan 
and the Serbs, brought about the insurrection, which 
ultimately led to the independence of Servia. 

The arrogance and insubordination of the Janis- 
saries had long been a danger to the Turkish Empire, 
and nowhere were they more insubordinate than in 
Belgrade. Their leaders, or daJii, like the Deys of 
the Barbary states, openly defied the Turkish Pashas 
who were their nominal superiors ; their exactions 
were more oppressive than the contributions levied 

309 



310 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

by the officials of the Sultan. With a stroke of his 
pen Selim banished the Janissaries from Servia, con- 
fiscated their property, and restored peace and pros- 
perity to the natives. But the Janissaries were only 
temporarily checked. In conjunction with the 
notorious brigand-chief, Pasvanoglu of Vidin, they 
descended upon Servia!, and it was with difficulty 
that Hadji Mustapha and the Serbs repulsed their 
attack. But the Porte could not reconcile itself to 
the permanent exile of men who, however unruly, 
were at any rate true believers. With strange vacil- 
lation the Sultan permitted their return. They were 
not long in resuming their former malpractices, and 
when Hadji Mustapha enforced the law and protected 
the peaceful inhabitants, they shut him up in the 
upper fortress of the city and put him to death. By 
way of apology they explained to the Porte that 
" Hadji Mustapha had been untrue to the Turks and 
a friend of the Christians." Their four chiefs then 
divided Servia between them, and the new Pasha had 
to content himself with the mere shadow of power. 
In vaiji the people complained to the Sultan. In 
vain the Sultan threatened the evil-doers with his 
vengeance. The Janissaries resolved to prevent him 
from levying a force of Serbs, as Hadji Mustapha 
had done, and massacred every one whom the people 
regarded as a leader. Early in 1804 this horrible 
crime was committed. Every village in Servia flowed 
with blood, and those who escaped the common 
butchery fled to the impenetrable forests of Chou- 
madia, a mountainous district situated between the 
streams of the Western and Lower Morava. 



BLACK GEORGE. 31I 

Filled with the desire for vengeance, the survivors 
met to choose a leader. There was at this time in 
Servia a certain George Petrovic, better known by his 
Turkish name of Kara, or " Black," George, from his 
dark raven locks. Kara George is the hero of modern 
Servian history, just as Stephen Dusan was of the 
ancient Serb Empire. The son of a peasant, he had 
taken part in the abortive rising of 1787, and was 
forced to flee for his life with his old father and his 
belongings. When they came to the river Save the 
father refused to go on, and his son, rather than allow 
him to be seized and tortured to death by the Turks, 
drew his pistol and shot him dead on the spot. For a 
while he served as a volunteer in the Austrian army, 
and when the war was over joined the brigands in the 
mountains. But under the peaceful sway of Hadji 
Mustapha he became a breeder of swine — then, as 
now, the staple industry of his country. He grew 
rich and respected, though few loved him, for he was 
silent and morose ; and, when he was angry, his 
temper was terrible. But in battle he towered above 
his followers, his eyes sparkled, and his foes fled 
before his maimed right hand. He knew his own 
weaknesses, and, when his fellow-countrymen asked 
him to be their leader, he reminded them of his 
violent character. But they refused to listen to his 
arguments, and he consented to be their chief. " I 
am a simple man," he told them ; " if you disobey me, 
I shall not try to enforce my authority by speeches, 
I shall kill the disobedient." His only brother, whom 
he dearly loved, was one of the first to incur this 
punishment. Such was the man to whom modern 



31 2 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

Servia owes her independence. To the end he pur- 
sued the simplicity of life which had marked his earlier 
career. At the summit of his power he wore a pea- 
sant's garb and pursued a peasant's avocations. He 
spoilt one of his foreign orders by wearing it when he 
was mending a cask ; and when he exercised princely 
power, he allowed his daughter to carry up water-cans 
from the well like a village maiden. He was a great 
man, though he was innocent of the alphabet and 
could not sign his own name at the bottom of a State 
paper. 

He soon gathered around him a considerable force. 
Nobles, like Jacob Nenadovic and Milenko, brigands, 
and even priests came to his assistance. " Every 
tree," says a patriotic ballad, " became a soldier." 
At first the Janissaries despised their enemy ; a single 
Mussulman, they boasted, could put fifty Serbs to 
flight. But Kara George, the " Commandant of 
Servia," as he styled himself, carried all before him. 
Belgrade was invested by his army, and the Turkish 
Government, no friend to the Janissaries, ordered the 
Pasha of Bosnia to ioin the Serbs with his forces. 
Kara George welcomed his unexpected ally with open 
arms ; Belgrade surrendered, and the heads of the 
four dahi adorned the insurgents' camp. The tyranny 
of the Janissaries was broken, and the object for 
which Kara George had fought was attained. The 
Sultan hoped that the Serbs would now return to 
their old allegiance. 

But their successes had inspired the Serb leaders 
with the idea of emancipating their country from 
Turkish interference in their internal affairs, no less 



WAR WITH TURKEY. 3 I 3 

than from the irregular rule of the Janissaries. As 
yet they had no desire for complete separation ; they 
only desired local self-government while preserving the 
external union with Constantinople. Shrewd enough 
to see that they could not yet stand alone, they sent 
a deputation to Russia to ask the aid of a country 
which had lately procured such solid advantages 
for the Danubian principalities. The Czar promised 
to support the claims of the Serbs at Constantinople, 
and the three envoys returned home proud of their 
powerful patron. But the Napoleonic wars engrossed 
his attention, and the sole result of his promises was 
to excite hopes in Servia, which he could not help to 
fulfil. The Serbs demanded that the fortresses in 
their land should henceforth be garrisoned by native 
instead of Turkish troops. The Sultan refused and 
told off the Pasha of Nisch to disarm the rebels. The 
Pasha failed in the attempt, the Sultan sent three 
armies to subdue the Serbs ; war between Servia and 
Turkey had fairly begun. The struggle was severe, 
for the Sultan's best solders were in the field. But 
under the leadership of Kara George and his able 
colleagues, Milenko, Mladen, and Jacob Nenadovic, 
the Serbs held their own against the Turkish armies. 
The strategical knowledge which many of them had 
picked up in the Austrian ranks now stood them in 
good stead. The character of the country made it 
easy to defend, and thus compensated for their great 
numerical inferiority. On the 4th of August, 1806, a 
great victory at Mischar proved decisive for the Ser- 
vian cause. The flower of the Bosnian chivalry fell, 
the Seraskier lost many of his solders in the waters 



314 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

of the Drin, Kara George, the " Supreme Chief," as he 
was now styled, remained master of the day. The 
Pasha of Skodra, upon the news of his colleague's 
defeat, proposed a truce, and a Servian embassy was 
sent to Constantinople to arrange terms. At first the 
Sultan, terrified at the prospect of an alliance between 
Servia and Russia, was ready to make almost any 
concession. He promised the Serbs a government 
of their own, the possession of all the Turkish fort- 
resses in Servia except Belgrade, where an Ottoman 
garrison of one hundred and fifty men was still to 
remain ; and, in lieu of all former taxes, the payment 
of six hundred thousand gulden a year, in order to 
provide compensation for the dispossessed Turkish 
landowners, whose lands would now revert to the 
natives. But just at this moment there came a turn 
in the great Napoleonic drama. Believing that 
Russia would soon be once more at war with 
the French Emperor and thus have no leisure for 
Balkan politics, Selim III. revoked his concessions 
and recommenced hostilities. Kara George lost no 
time in accepting the challenge. Belgrade once again 
capitulated to him, but he could not check the fury of 
his followers against its Turkish inhabitants. For 
two days the massacre continued ; on the third few 
survived to tell the tale. It was the revenge of the 
people for centuries of oppression. 

The revolution had overthrown all the existing in- 
stitutions which the Turks had created, and the first 
business of Kara George, now that he had freed his 
country, was to provide it with a government. With the 
aid of a Hungarian Serb, named Philippovic, a Senate, 



THE NEW GOVERNMENT. 315 

composed of twelve members corresponding to the 
twelve nahie, or districts, of Servia, was established in 
the capital and entrusted with the tasks of levying taxes 
for the maintenance of the standing army, organising 
tribunals and promoting education. Feeling sorely 
their own literary deficiencies, the leaders of the revo- 
lution not only erected elementary schools in every 
county-town, but started a high school at Belgrade, 
where history was taught. By the side of the Senate 
there was an Assembly, or Skupschtina, to which the 
local chieftains came with their retinues every year to 
decide questions of peace or war and the punishment 
of great criminals. Kara George exercised, 'as 
" Supreme Chief," the executive power, and when 
the Senate displeased him ordered his soldiers to stick 
the muzzles of their muskets in at the windows of the 
hall where it met. "It is easy," he said, " to make laws 
in a warm chamber ; but who will lead against the 
Turks in the field ? " 

The dangers which threatened Turkey from every 
side in 1809 induced Kara George to attack his old 
enemies. Russia, at peace with Napoleon, 'had de- 
clared war on the new Sultan, Montenegro was in 
ferment, the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Serbs im- 
plored the help of their emancipated brothers. Kara 
George, with Montenegrin aid, had begun a campaign 
in the West, and was marching across Novibazar, 
when the news of a Turkish invasion of Servia on the 
East recalled him to the defence of his country. But 
the jealousies of the rival chiefs paralysed his efforts. 
In his despair he implored the aid of Napoleon, but 
without success. The Czar was more willing to assist 



316 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

him, and Russian and Servian troops stemmed the 
tide of invasion. Kara George emerged from the 
war more powerful than ever, Servia could breathe 
again, even though the Sultan still declined to recog- 
nise her hard-won independence. 

But with the disappearance of danger from out- 
side internal dissensions recommenced. Already 
there were in Servia a Russian and an Austrian 
party. Kara George had meditated putting the 
country under the protection of Austria ; his own 
pre-eminence excited the envy of the great military 
chiefs, who wished to have the Czar as their sovereign. 
For a time the Russian faction was predominant, but 
the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812, by which Russia, 
menaced by Napoleon, sacrificed the Christians of the 
Balkans, left Servia to her own resources. Turkey 
at once proclaimed a " holy war " against her revolted 
subjects ; Kara George issued a fiery address in which 
he prayed God " to put courage into the hearts of 
Servia's sons." But this time his own heart failed 
him. He, the hero of a hundred fights with the 
Turks, lay jnactive in the mountains, while the Otto- 
man armies invaded the land, and, when the critical 
moment came, he buried his money and retired into 
Austria. Servia, deprived of her trusted chief, lay at 
the mercy of the foe. Most of the principal men 
followed Kara George ; after a nine years' successful 
struggle for independence, the Servian nation had 
suddenly collapsed. 

Among the Serbs who had refused to leave their 
native land, was a certain Milosh Obrenovic, an in- 
fluential man, who had taken a prominent part in the 



MILOSH. 



317 



war. The founder of the present reigning House of 
Servia, like his great rival Kara George, began life as 
a humble farm-servant. His father, a peasant named 
Tescho, had married the widow of one Obren, from 
whom Milosh derived his patronymic. From his 




MILOSH OBRENOVIC- 



half-brother Milan, who was the son of this Obren, 
Milosh inherited a considerable fortune ; and the flight 
of all the native leaders left him the most influential 
man in the country. Seeing that resistance was hope- 
less for the present, he left his hiding-place in the 



318 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

mountains and came to terms with the conquerors. 
Soliman, the new Pasha of Belgrade, received him 
with every respect and appointed him headman, or 
oberknes, of the three districts where he had influence. 
His conduct has naturally given rise to very different 
views of his character. Some regard him as an astute 
statesman, who saw that the only way to save his 
country was to worm himself into the confidence 
of its conquerors, and so moderate the violence of 
their anger. Others consider him to have been a 
traitor, who cared for nothing but his own personal 
advantage. A true hero would hardly have acted 
like Milosh, for he would have desired that his 
actions should be above suspicion. But the good- 
ness or badness of his motives, however much they 
may affect our estimate of his character, does not 
detract from the importance of his work. 

At first he appeared to be a zealous supporter of 
Turkish rule. When Hadschi Prodan, a patriotic 
Serb, rose against the conquerors in 1 8 14, he promptly 
suppressed the revolt, but endeavoured to save the 
rebels from the results of their acts. But the cruelty 
of Soliman made him fear for his own safety; his head, 
he said, was no longer secure. Under a pretext he 
quitted Belgrade and took to the mountains, where 
he soon gathered around him a band of malcontents. 
At Takovo on Palm Sunday, 181 5, he was hailed by 
his comrades as " Supreme Chief" of the Serbs. From 
every side men flocked to his banner ; a guerilla 
warfare, such as the Serbs love, made terrible havoc 
with the Turkish troops ; even the strong fortress of 
Passarovic fell into his hands, The dread of Rus- 






MURDER OF BLACK GEORGE. 319 

sian intervention, which the final conclusion of the 
Napoleonic struggle in 1815 rendered possible, in- 
clined the Sultan to make terms with the Serbs, who 
had sent their envoys to seek the aid of the Congress • 
of Vienna. In place of the former Senate, there was 
established a Court composed, as before, of representa- 
tives of the twelve nahie ; the old Skupschtina was 
allowed to raise the amount of tribute paid to the 
Turkish Pasha, who continued to occupy Belgrade ; 
tribunals, presided over by the head-man, assisted by 
a Mussulman in cases where the litigants belonged to 
the two races, administered justice in each district ; 
and, last but not least, the Serbs received permission 
to carry arms. They had thus regained under Milosh 
a semi-independence ; internal disputes at once began. 
The news of the Turkish defeats reached Kara 
George in his exile in Bessarabia. The old leader 
received pressing letters bidding him return, and in 
1 81 7 he secretly recrossed the frontier of his native 
land. To Milosh his return was anything but welcome, 
for there was no room for two " Supreme Chiefs " in 
the Servian councils. The two men had never been 
friends, and Milosh now resolved to rid himself of 
his rival for ever. He accordingly told the Turkish 
Pasha of Kara George's arrival, and of the seditious 
plans which he was forming. The Pasha bade him 
procure the murder of the rebel ; and Milosh, nothing 
loth, ordered Vuica, a brigand chief, to send either 
Black George's head or his own. The order was 
promptly obeyed. As Kara George slept he was 
stealthily assassinated, and his head sent to the 
exultant Pasha. Such was the ignominious end of 



320 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

Servia's national hero. From that moment began 
the feud, which is not even yet extinct, between the 
descendants of Kara George and the house of 
Obrenovic. The history of Servia during the greater 
part of the present century is one long duel between 
these rival families. 

Milosh was now without a competitor ; for he had 
also secured the execution of the Archbishop of 
Belgrade and a prominent noble, who had menaced 
his supremacy. In November, 1817, the head-men 
of all the districts, together with the ecclesiastical 
dignitaries of the country, named him Prince of 
Servia, and declared the title hereditary in his family. 
The dignity lasted until it was exchanged in 1882 
for the title of King. For a long time the Porte 
refused to recognise him in his new capacity ; and, 
when he sent a deputation to Constantinople, his 
envoys were imprisoned. But Russia, which had 
been the first to acknowledge him as a lawful Prince, 
demanded, in the Convention of Akermann in 1826, 
the evacuation of Servia by the Turks, and a definite 
settlement of the relations between the Sultan and 
the Serbs. When the Porte hesitated to carry out 
its engagements, the Russian army laid siege to 
Varna. The attitude of Milosh, who, without actively 
assisting Russia in the war of 1828, kept the Bosnian 
and Albanian forces from attacking the Russian 
troops in the flank, was rewarded by the Czar. In 
the peace of Adrianople, it was stipulated that Servia 
should be completely independent of the Porte on 
payment of an annual tribute, but that the frontier 
fortresses should be held by Turkish garrisons, A 



DESPOTISM OF MILOSH. 32 1 

year later, on the last day of November, 1830, the 
Sultan formally recognised Milosh as hereditary 
Prince. Milosh had reached the summit of his 
power ; from that moment his influence began to 
wane. 

The Serbs soon found that the government of their 
own fellow-countryman was not much milder than 
that of the Turkish Pasha. He collected the taxes 
with no less stringency ; he treated the chiefs with 
no more respect. The peasants asked themselves 
whether their desperate struggles with the Turks 
had profited them much, and whether they had not 
made all their sacrifices simply for the glorification 
of one man. Milosh acted as an autocrat. He 
ceased to assemble the Skupschtma, and, in spite of 
the code which he had introduced for the use of his 
country, made his own will the highest law. He 
took what he chose from his subjects at a price 
fixed by himself, and once ordered a whole suburb 
of Belgrade to be set on fire, because he wished to 
build a new custom-house. He handled the people 
like serfs, and forced them to gather in his hay 
without payment, like a feudal lord. He enclosed 
the commons, on which the peasants fed their swine, 
and aimed at obtaining a monopoly of the staple 
trade of Servia. The pig has always been an im- 
portant factor in Servian politics, and this last act 
of the Prince was most unpopular. Even his own 
son admitted that Milosh committed great mistakes 
in his domestic policy. " Am I not the master ? can 
I not do what I will with mine own ? " was the 
father's reply. Simple and genial as he was in his 



322 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

summer home at Passarovic or in his winter residence 
at Krusevac, in the midst of his family, the " peasant- 
prince " was a tyrant to his people. His refusal to 
assist the Serbs of Bosnia, who implored his help, 
was a further ground of complaint. One rising after 
another broke out, a conspiracy against the Prince's 
life was discovered, and at last he thought it prudent 
to grant his people a constitution. 

On the 15th of February, 1835, he opened the 
Skupschtina with a speech, in which he promised all 
the latest inventions of Western politics — the rights 
of man, ministerial responsibility, and the subordina- 
tion of the sovereign to the law. A Council of State 
was called into existence, the Prince reserved for 
himself the right of supervision alone ; by a single 
stroke of the pen semi-civilised Servia was converted 
from an Oriental despotism into a constitutional 
monarchy. The scheme looked beautiful on paper, 
but events proved that the nation was not ripe for 
so elaborate a system of government. The constitu- 
tion of 1835 was unworkable, and Milosh treated it 
as a dead letter and returned to his old despotic 
ways. His monopolies of salt and other necessaries 
were worse than ever, and his subjects felt his 
exactions all the more because he spent abroad 
the money which he raised from them. His increas- 
ing power had alarmed not only the Sultan, but the 
Czar, who up to the Treaty of Adrianople had been 
his friend. The former feared that other Christian 
races in his Empire might follow the example of 
the Serbs ; the latter was pursuing the time-honoured 
policy of Russia in the Balkan Peninsula, which 



MI LOS H YIELDS. 323 

consists in allowing the various states to acquire 
sufficient power to make them independent of Turkey 
but not sufficient to enable them to stand alone 
without Russian aid. In order to cripple the strength 
of Milosh, Russia played the same game as in 
Bulgaria in 1879, and tried to divide the authority 
in Servia between Prince and people. The discon- 
tented nobles, under Ephrem, the Prince's brother, 
readily fell in with this scheme. The Czar sent 
Prince Dolgorouki to Servia with instructions to 
urge upon Milosh the necessity of a really efficient 
constitution. Milosh was supported against Russia 
by the influence of Great Britain, which had lately 
sent Colonel Hodges as Consul to Belgrade — the 
first instance of British interest in Servian affairs. 
The British Government thought that Servia might 
become a valuable market for Birmingham and 
Manchester goods, and accordingly desired the 
maintenance of the commercial autocracy of Milosh. 
But the Prince reflected that England was, after all, 
a long way off, and that Servia had no seaboard 
where British bluejackets could land, if he required 
their aid. So he yielded to the persuasions of Russia, 
and by a decree of the 24th of December, 1838, there 
was established a Senate or Council of seventeen 
ministers, who were irremovable and enjoyed full 
legislative powers. Four ministers for different depart- 
ments were appointed by the Prince, but it was to 
the new Council that they had to make their reports. 
The power of Milosh was gone ; he had scarcely a 
friend among his ministers and on the Council ; his 
enemies at once used against him the lever which the 



324 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

new constitution had placed in their hands. In vain 
his adherents, under his brother Jovan, took up arms 
against the Council. Milosh found himself deserted, 
he was told that he must resign in favour of his 
eldest son Milan. On the 13th of June, 1839, he 
signed his abdication, and without saying a word, 
amid the tears of his retinue, he, the second founder 
of modern Servia, crossed the Save. But his career 
was not over ; twenty years later he was to return 
and for a brief space once more rule his native 
land. 

Milan Obrenovic II., who succeeded his father, died 
a month later, and his health was so feeble that 
during that brief period a Regency governed in 
his stead. Upon his death there broke out dis- 
putes as to the succession, which are even now 
not entirely settled. But the Senate promptly 
proclaimed Milan's younger brother Prince under the 
title of Michael Obrenovic III., and the Sultan, as 
suzerain, ratified the decision of the Senate. But, in 
order to impose a check upon the Prince, the Porte 
placed Petronievic and Vouicic, two powerful nobles 
who had acted as Regents for his brother, at his side. 
Thus, at the very outset of his reign, Michael had 
two dangerous rivals near his throne, who were cer- 
tain sooner or later to plot against him. The people 
were discontented, for, as one of them said, " in the 
time of Milosh we had only one ditch to fill with 
money, but now we must fill seventeen, one for each 
of the senators." They demanded the removal of 
the seat of government from Belgrade to Krusevac, 
where it would be more independent, the trial of the 



ALEXANDER KARAGEORGEVIC. 32$ 

Regents and the recall of Milosh. The Regents fell, 
and Michael, installed at Krusevac, gained a free 
hand for his contemplated reforms. But he allowed 
himself to be carried too far by the zeal of his 
Minister of Education, an Austrian Serb, who desired 
to raise Servia all at once to the level of a civilised 
Western state. The improvement of the education 
of the clergy, the introduction of written pleadings 
in courts of law, the collection of statistics, the estab- 
lishment of an opera and a theatre in Belgrade were 
excellent things in their way, but they cost money, 
and it became necessary to increase the taxes in 
order to obtain it. The peasants, who had been 
the strongest supporters of the Obrenovic family, 
grumbled and shook their heads over these new- 
fangled " German " ideas. The return of Petronievic 
and Vouicic from exile provided the opposition with 
chiefs, and an open revolt broke out against the 
Prince. Michael saw himself abandoned by his 
people as his father had been, Vouicic had seduced 
his subjects from their allegiance, and there was 
nothing left for him but to resign. At the end of 
August, 1842, he withdrew into Austrian territory, 
and Vouicic formed a triumvirate for the government 
of the country. But the people demanded a Prince, 
and the unanimous choice of the seventeen provinces 
of Servia fell upon the son of the national hero, Kara 
George, Alexander Karageorgevic. Born amid the 
dangers of the War of Independence in 1806, Black 
George's son had received an allowance from Milosh, 
and had served as an officer in Michael's guard. 
Pleasant and unassuming in manner, he had won 



326 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

the general esteem of his fellow-countrymen, and 
the great name which he bore made him the only 
possible successor to an Obrenovic on the throne of 
Servia. The Sultan at once ratified his election, but 
the Czar Nicholas I., who regarded himself as the 
" Protector of Servia," insisted upon a new election 
being held. The fears of Russia that a Karageorgevic 
would prove too independent were, however, idle, for 
Alexander lacked the spirit of his sire. But, in order 
to pacify the Czar, the form of another election was 
gone through, and Alexander once more chosen as 
Prince, the appointment, however, being only for life. 
With this concession, and the exile of the two revolu- 
tionary chiefs, Vouicic and Petronievic, the Russian 
autocrat professed himself 'contented, and for the next 
few years Servia enjoyed profound peace. Abroad, 
the Prince abandoned the "great Servian idea" of 
Milosh, who had dreamed of emancipating all the 
Serbs outside the principality from the Turkish 
yoke ; at home, he devoted himself to those fiscal 
and economic reforms which were sorely needed. 
During- his reign the principality made great material 
progress. Roads opened up the internal commerce 
of the country, two new codes were promulgated, 
and great public works undertaken. For a brief 
space Servia seemed to have reached that happy 
condition of having no history, to which few states, 
least of all in the Balkan Peninsula, ever attain. 

But the outbreak of the revolution in Hungary 
in 1848 at once aroused the sympathy of the Serbs 
of the principality. The Prince preserved official 
neutrality, but he could not prevent his subjects from 



THE CRIMEAN WAR. $ 2 7 

volunteering against the Magyars, who showed such 
slight regard for the claims of other nationalities. 
The situation was rendered more difficult by the 
fact, that Milosh and his son Michael openly assisted 
the Serb revolutionists in Hungary, and thus gained 
popularity as champions of the Servian race. But 
a much more awkward problem confronted Kara- 
georgevic when Russia entered upon the Crimean 
War. The Czar, who had been greatly annoyed by 
the appointment of the Liberal and anti-Russian 
statesman, Elia Garashanine, as Servian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, demanded his dismissal within 
twenty-four hours. The Prince was on the horns 
of a dilemma ; if he refused to dismiss his minister, 
he would offend the Czar ; if he obeyed the Czar, 
he would wound the pride of his subjects. He 
yielded, only to find that Russia was resolved to 
ask. further concessions. But Austria stepped in, and 
induced Servia to remain strictly neutral in the war 
of 1854. Nothing loth — for they had no love for 
their imperious Russian " Protector " — the Serbs con- 
fined themselves to preparing an armed resistance to 
any army, whether Austrian or Russian, which might 
invade their country. Small as their numbers were, 
they would have proved most valuable allies to the 
Czar, and their abstention from all active participa- 
tion in the war completely altered his plan of cam- 
paign. Turkey and the Western Powers remembered 
this policy of " masterly inactivity " with gratitude at 
the end of the war. The Treaty of Paris of 1856 
provided that Servia should remain under the suze- 
rainty of the Sultan, but that its " rights and privi- 



328 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

leges should henceforth be placed under the collective 
guarantee of the Powers," who promised that it should 
" preserve its independent and national administration, 
as well as its religious, legislative, and commercial 
liberty." The Porte retained its right of occupying 
the frontier fortresses, and continued to receive an 
annual tribute, but it was specially laid down in the 
treaty that " no armed intervention could take place 
in Servia without the previous consent of the Powers." 
Thus the claim of the Czar to be the " Protector of 
Servia " was set aside in favour of the joint protection 
of the European Governments. 

But, successful as had been his policy during the 
Crimean War, Karageorgevic soon became very un- 
popular. His enemies accused him of servility to 
Austria, and regretted the expulsion of the Obrenovic 
family. The Senate was composed of his opponents, 
and he accordingly petitioned the Sultan to rescind 
the existing constitution and substitute for it one 
much less Liberal. The Senators at once came for- 
ward as the friends of the people and sent a counter- 
petition to the Porte, asking for a great extension of 
the national privileges. In the eyes of the masses 
they appeared as true patriots, while the Prince seemed 
a reactionary of the worst type. A conspiracy against 
his life led to the arrest and imprisonment of several 
popular members of the Senate, and the discontent 
of the nation increased. Some desired the recall of 
Milosh and his son ; others the election of Gara- 
shanine ; others, again, wished to have Karageorgevic's 
nephew as their Prince. But all were agreed that 
Alexander must go, and demanded the summoning 




THE OLDEST CHURCH IN SERVIA. 



330 THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

of a National Assembly. The Assembly met in 
December, 1858, and at once demanded the Prince's 
resignation. Alexander fled to the fortress at Bel- 
grade, and next day old Prince Milosh was restored 
to the throne. Twenty years after he had quitted his 
country as an exile, the aged leader returned amidst 
the acclamations of his fickle people. 

Milosh did not long survive his restoration. But 
before he died he raised the Servian nation to a 
position which it had never occupied under the feeble 
rule of his predecessor. Alike to Austria and to the 
Sultan he quickly demonstrated his determination to 
allow no foreign interference in the internal affairs 
of his country. He promptly removed the Turkish 
guards from the streets of his capital, and demanded 
the strict execution of the article of the Treaty of 
Paris which limited the Turkish right of occupation 
to the frontier-fortresses. When the Porte sent an 
evasive reply and hesitated to recognise the here- 
ditary claim of the Obrenovic family to the throne, 
he drew up a solemn declaration before the National 
Assembly, in which he proclaimed the acceptance of 
both these principles by the Servian people, with or 
without the consent of the Sultan. In order to en- 
sure the succession beyond all dispute, the Assembly 
decided that, in default of heirs, the Prince might 
adopt a Serb of noble birth and belonging to the 
Greek faith as his successor, and that during a 
minority a Regency, composed of three ministers, 
should carry on the government of the country. A 
month later, in September, i860, Milosh died. It 
was well for him that his reign was not extended, 



DEATH OF MILOSH. 33 1 

for his former experience had not disabused him of 
his autocratic ideas. He belonged to a past genera- 
tion, and had learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing 
during his long exile. His contemporaries, especially 
the peasants, might look with gratitude upon the 
great services which he had rendered to his country 
in days gone by, and pardon his errors of judgment 
and his despotic ways. But the rising generation, 
which knew not the Milosh of the struggle for In- 
dependence, was rapidly growing restive under his 
patriarchal rule. No matter was too small, no detail 
too trivial for his consideration, and he was greedy 
of power to the last. With his death the heroic 
age of modern Servia closed ; for, with all his faults, 
Milosh was a hero, not of the ideal sort, but such 
as are the makers of half-civilised Oriental States. 
Panegyrists have tried to excuse his complicity in 
the murder of his great rival, Kara George, which 
will ever be a stain on his character, and there are 
as many different interpretations of his conduct in 
181 3 as there are writers on the period. But, judged 
according to the standard of Oriental rulers in that 
age, Milosh was not much their inferior in character 
and greatly their superior in ability. His name and 
that of Kara George will ever be remembered in con- 
nection with Servia's emancipation from the Turk. 



VI. 



THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SERVIA. 
(i860— 1878.) 

Michael Obrenovic III., who on the death of 
his father once again mounted the throne of Servia, 
inaugurated a new era in the history of his country. 
If Milosh had contended that "the sovereign's will is 
the highest law," his son took as his motto the much 
more modern sentiment that " the law is the highest 
authority." He had travelled much since his brief 
and boyish reign eighteen years earlier. His resi- 
dence in. Western capitals had filled him with pro- 
gressive ideas, and he represented the new spirit 
which had manifested itself in Servia during his long 
exile. Michael is the best ruler whom his country 
has yet had, and his second reign short as it was, 
has left a permanent mark upon the national life. 
For he was a moderate reformer, who recognised the 
great truth that institutions may be excellent in 
themselves, and yet be quite unsuited to a people 
which is not sufficiently advanced to appreciate them. 
He openly avowed his preference for the British con- 



MICHAELS REFORMS. 333 

stitut : on, but expressed his conviction that Servia had 
much to learn before she could understand it. In 
every department of the State his influence was for 
good. He began by reforming the Senate of Seven- 
teen, which ever since its creation had been nothing 
but a Venetian oligarchy, making and unmaking 
princes at its will, and forming a perpetual hotbed of 
intrigues. Relying on the assumption that the con- 
sent of the Sultan was necessary for their removal, 
the senators had always set the sovereign at defiance, 
while they had entirely monopolised legislative 
power. Michael now adopted a compromise. He 
left the senators their legislative functions, but made 
them amenable to the decisions of the law courts, 
which, without consulting the Sultan, had the right 
to remove them for misconduct. Having thus cur- 
tailed the privileges of the Senate, he proceeded to 
regulate the authority of the National Assembly, or 
Skupschtina. During the reign of Karageorgevic this 
body had been only twice summoned, the second 
occasion being the deposition of that prince. The 
" Assembly of St. Andrew," as it was popularly called 
from its custom of meeting on the festival of that 
national saint, had taken that opportunity to assert 
itself, and, under the influence of a few men of the 
professional class who had studied abroad, aimed at 
copying the British House of Commons. But the 
peasants, with their natural suspicion of those who 
had acquired more culture than themselves, were not 
prepared for so democratic a step, and Michael 
accordingly summoned the Assembly every third 
year for the discussion of such measures as were laid 



334 THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SERVIA. 

before it by the ministers. Its duties were to express 
the wishes of the people on these proposals. It had 
no power of originating legislation, and it could not 
touch the budget, which was reserved for the Senate. 
But as the nation acquired more political education, 
Michael intended to extend its political rights and 
even grant it a free press. Another and much more 
democratic measure he attempted without success. 
A graduated income-tax is unknown in countries far 
more advanced than was Servia thirty years ago. 
But Prince Michael, conscious of the grievous injus- 
tice of the existing poll-tax, which had hitherto been 
levied on rich and poor alike, endeavoured to in- 
troduce the principle of payment in proportion to 
income. The result showed the futility of such a 
scheme in the then state of public morality, for the 
returns sent in were constantly falsified. Michael 
abandoned the scheme, and substituted for it the 
method of taxing each district at a certain sum, to be 
collected by the local authorities from those who 
were best able to pay it. The introduction of the 
decimal system and the issue for the first time of a 
distinctive Servian coinage completed his political 
and economic reforms. 

It was to Michael, too, that Servia owed the first 
attempt at military organisation. Hitherto the 
Servian armies had been mere conglomerations of 
individuals, admirably adapted for a guerilla warfare 
among the mountains, but without discipline, and 
badly armed. The Prince knew the valour of his 
subjects, and saw that they only required to be 
properly drilled and equipped to become efficient 



MICHAEL'S FOREIGN POLICY. 335 

soldiers. He accordingly purchased two hundred 
thousand rifles of the latest pattern, which, in spite of 
Turkish protests, he smuggled into the country and 
sold at a very low rate to his people. Conscription 
at once followed ; every Serb above the age of 
twenty was liable to serve, and a force of cavalry 
and artillery was raised from the different towns. 
The effect of this reform was at once felt in the 
national policy. The Prince found his new army the 
strongest argument when he spoke in the name of 
his country and demanded further liberties from the 
Sultan. 

For Michael's foreign policy was as successful as 
his internal reforms. At the death of his father, 
Turkish garrisons in the frontier fortresses and an 
annual tribute still reminded the people of the days 
of Ottoman domination. Michael resolved to 
secure the retirement of the last Turkish soldier 
from his country, and, above all, from the splendid 
castle which commanded his capital. At the outset 
he refused to go, as his predecessors had done, to the 
field before the fortress of Belgrade to hear the 
Turkish berat read, which confirmed his election, but 
proudly bade its bearer come to his palace. A 
collision between the garrison and the people • in 
1862 gave him the opportunity which he sought. 
The Turkish commandant bombarded the city ; the 
consular body supported the Prince in his protest at 
Constantinople The people urged him to join with 
Montenegro, then at war with the Turks, and he at 
once resigned his own civil list and offered to devote 
all his personal property to military purposes. But 



336 THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF S ER VIA. 

the Powers suggested a Conference, and the Prince 
laid before it a demand for the immediate evacuation 
of every Servian fortress by the Turks. The Con- 
ference proposed as an alternative the withdrawal of 
the Mussulman population from the towns on pay- 
ment of an indemnity for the property which they 
left behind, and this the Prince accepted as an instal- 
ment. Confident of the support of England, where 
his wife, Princess Julia, had awakened much sym- 
pathy for the Servian cause, he felt that he could 
afford to wait. It was at this time that Lord 
Palmerston made his famous pun to the Princess at 
one of his receptions. As she entered the room her 
dress caught in the door. " Princesse" said the witty 
Premier, hastening to release her, " la Porte est sur 
voire chemin, pour vous empecher d'avancer." The 
Porte did not block her country's progress much 
longer. Encouraged by the tremendous enthusiasm 
which in 1865 hailed the jubilee of his father's rising 
against the Turks, and relying on the organised army 
which he now had at his back, the Prince petitioned 
the Sultan in 1867 for the evacuation or demolition of 
the fortresses still occupied by Turkish troops. The 
tactful manner in which the request was made pleased 
the formalists at the Porte, and the Cretan insurrec- 
tion made it highly impolitic to offend the Serbs. 
Austria and England supported the claim, and the 
Sultan at last withdrew his garrisons with a good grace, 
merely stipulating that the forts should be kept up by 
the Serbs, and that on high days and holidays the 
Crescent should be displayed from one of the battle- 
ments. For the first time for centuries Belgrade was 



BELGRADE ENTIRELY FREE. 337 

entirely free, and the grand old castle, which had 
braved a hundred sieges, was in the hands of a 
national garrison. As the last Turkish soldier 
quitted Servian soil Michael's policy was trium- 
phantly vindicated, for the tribute now alone re- 
mained as a relic of the old Turkish days. It was 
even thought that the Prince would be supported by 
France and Austria if he added Bosnia to his 
dominions. Fortune was indeed smiling on the 
Serbs. 

But the hand of the assassin had marked Prince 
Michael as a victim. From the beginning of his 
reign there had been a strong opposition against him. 
His virtues made him unpopular with some, for he 
rigidly refused to proscribe the adherents of the 
Karageorgevic faction and hand their posts to his 
adherents. They could not understand the Prince's 
maxim, that " Servia was so small a country, and had 
so great a mission, that he could not look at the 
colour of the men whom he employed in the State 
service." The Karageorgevic party was not in the 
least appeased by his generosity. The ex-Prince 
Alexander assumed the part of a Pretender, and his 
agents represented the fiscal and military reforms of 
Michael as injurious to the nation. In 1864 the dis- 
contented elements in the country united in a con- 
spiracy against the Prince, some desiring the recall of 
Alexander, others wishing to proclaim a Republic. 
The plot failed, but the scandal caused by the 
acquittal of the conspirators, and the subsequent 
impeachment of the judges who had acquitted them, 
did no good to the Government. On his way back 

23 



33§ THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SERVIA. 

from the Paris Exhibition the Prince was nearly 
murdered. But he refused to take precautions, and 
his carelessness at last cost him his life. 

Every visitor to Belgrade is taken to see the beau- 
tiful park of Topiderc, which is situated between 
two low oak-covered hills about two miles and a half 
away. In this park was the summer residence of the 
Prince, and it was his usual custom on hot afternoons 
to walk with his family along a shady path which he 
had had cut through the woods. All Belgrade knew 
his favourite walk, and the conspirators had no diffi- 
culty in laying their plans accordingly. On the 
afternoon of the 10th of June, 1868, the Prince set 
out for the park with his aunt, her daughter and 
granddaughter, his only retinue consisting of a single 
aid-de-camp and a groom. As the little party was 
walking along the narrow path under the trees four 
men suddenly came round the corner, and, with a 
respectful salute, stood aside to allow the Prince to 
pass. Scarcely had he done so than four pistol-shots 
were heard from behind, and the Prince fell. A few 
moments after he expired, and his cousin, who was 
also mortally wounded, died two hours later ; her 
daughter received a severe injury, the aid-de-camp 
fainted, and the Prince's aunt and his groom alone 
escaped unhurt. In order to make certain of their 
victim's death, the assassins drew their knives and 
plunged them repeatedly into his prostrate body ; no 
fewer than forty wounds were afterwards counted on 
his corpse. It was owing to this delay and the 
breakdown of their carriage on the way back to 
Belgrade that the murderers were baulked of the 



MURDER OF MICHAEL. 339 

results which they had confidently anticipated from 
their horrible deed. Their intention had been to 
send one of their number at once to the city to pro- 
claim Peter Karageorgevic, son of the ex-Prince 
Alexander, and issue a new constitution in his name. 
This document was all ready, a list of new ministers 
had been drawn up, and as soon as the news of 
Michael's murder arrived those officials who showed 
any resistance were to be shot. But when their 
carriage at last reached Belgrade, the tidings had 
preceded them. The garrison was under arms, the 
energetic Minister of War, Petrovic Blacnavac, the 
most intimate of the murdered Prince's advisers, was 
master of the situation, and the chief conspirators 
were speedily arrested. The four assassins were two 
brothers Radovanovic, one of whom had been con- 
victed of forgery, a wife-murderer named Marie, and 
a desperado called Rogic. The plot proved to be 
widespread, and many friends and connections of the 
Karageorgevic family were implicated. Two of the 
ringleaders were the ex-Prince Alexander's brothers- 
in-law, another was his lawyer, and Prince Peter 
himself, at that time an exile in Vienna, was openly 
accused of being an accomplice. Party feeling ran 
high. The Conservatives declared the conspiracy to 
be the work of the Omladina, a literary and political 
society of advanced views, which existed wherever 
Serbs were found and numbered Prince Peter among 
its most recent recruits. The National Assembly, 
which was summoned under these exciting circum- 
stances, unanimously decreed the exclusion of the 
Karageorgevic family from the Servian throne for 



3J.O THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SEE VIA. 

ever, and to this day the descendants of Black George 
are exiles. Blood had been requited by blood, and 
the murder of the Servian Liberator by Milosh 
Obrenovic had been avenged in the next generation 
by the murder of Milosh's son. The Assembly then 
proclaimed Michael's nearest relative, his cousin 
Milan, as hereditary Prince of Servia, under the title 
of Milan Obrenovic IV. As the young Prince was 
at that time barely fourteen, a Regency of three 
persons, of whom Petrovic Blacnavac was the chief, 
was appointed to carry on the government till he 
came of age. 

The murder of Michael was indeed a blow for 
Servia. On his tomb in the cathedral of Belgrade 
his widow has engraved the words, " Thy memory 
shall not perish." No epitaph could better have 
expressed the feelings of the nation towards the best 
and ablest of all its modern rulers. 

The three Regents began their task by securing 
from the Porte a final recognition of the hereditary 
rights of the Obrenovic family. They then pro- 
ceeded tg draw up a somewhat more liberal constitu- 
tion than that which had, with some modifications, 
existed for the last thirty years. Prince Michael in 
his reforms had only amended the old system of 
government ; the Regents now took the bolder step 
of abolishing it altogether. The new constitution 
of 1869 entrusted all power to the Prince and the 
National Assembly, which was to meet every year 
and was re-elected every three. This body consisted 
for ordinary purposes of 120 members, of whom 
90 were elected by the people and 30 nominated 



accession of milan. 341 

by the Prince. In order to pacify the jealousy which 
the Serb peasantry and small farmers felt of the 
professional class, it was provided that while members 
of the latter could be nominated by the Prince, no 
lawyer or official was eligible by the people. On 
extraordinary occasions a " Great Assembly " of 480 
persons, all chosen by the people, replaced the 
ordinary legislature. The elections were open, and 
therefore easily manipulated by the Government, and 
it was found that the Assembly became the tool of 
the Ministers. This is the constitution which was 
restored by the coup d'etat of 1894, when the much 
more Radical Reform Act of 1888 was abolished 
by a stroke of the boy King Alexander's pen, and 
remains in force to the present day. 

Prince Milan came of age in 1872, and soon 
showed his determination to govern in his own 
way. Educated in Paris, the new ruler had acquired 
decidedly Parisian tastes, but his abilities proved 
considerably better than his character. He had a 
strong will, but his love of pleasure, his reckless 
extravagance, and his devotion to the gaming-table 
ruined what might otherwise have been a successful 
career. A man of fashion rather than a soldier, he 
found himself compelled to support the agitation of 
the Serb race against the Turks, and the insurrection 
which broke out in the Herzegovina in 1875 dragged 
him, however unwillingly, into war. 

During the Regency the idea of a " Great Servia," 
which should include all the scattered branches of 
the Serb stock under one ruler, had been sedulously 
cultivated. M. Ristic, the second Regent and a 



342 THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SERVIA. 

statesman of marked ability, had been the soul of 
this policy, which was bound to offend the suscepti- 
bilities not only of Turkey, but of Austria- Hungary. 
It was not clear who was to be the head of this 
" great Servian kingdom " — Prince Milan of Servia, 
or Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, a born leader of 
men, greatly superior in character to the Prince of 
Servia. Prince Milan was therefore less anxious 
than Prince Nicholas for a war with Turkey, espe- 
cially as the latter had declined to acknowledge him 
as leader of the Servian movement, although he had 
expressed his willingness to serve under Michael. 
But the voice of the Servian people prevailed over 
the hesitation of the ruler, and insisted upon a 
crusade against the hereditary enemy. Milan yielded, 
and on the 30th of June, 1876, proclaimed his 
intention of joining his arms to those of the Bosniaks 
and Herzegovinians. Montenegro declared war the 
day after Servia, and a campaign began between the 
two branches of the Serb race and the descendants 
of those who had destroyed the old Servian Empire 
nearly five centuries before. 

The Servian army was under the directions of the 
Russian General Tchernaieff, and consisted, all told, 
of some 148,000 men. But it soon became clear that 
the soldiers were not only inferior to the Monte- 
negrins, but were no match for the Turks. At first 
the superior generalship of their Russian commander 
enabled them to carry the war into the enemy's 
country near Ak-palanka. But the Turks soon 
penetrated into Servia and drove them back. A 
battle beneath the walls of Alexinac resulted in the 



THE WAR WITH TURKEY. 343 

complete defeat of Prince Milan's army, and the 
Porte refused to grant peace except on the most 
onerous terms. The negotiations begun by England 
were hindered by the proclamation of the Prince as 
King of Servia at Deligrad on the 16th of September 
at the suggestion of General Tchernaieff, and the war 
went on as before. The capture of Alexinac and 
Deligrad by the Turks left the road to Belgrade at 
their mercy, and the Servian troops, with the excep- 
tion of the artillerymen, became utterly disorganised. 
An armistice was arranged by the intervention of 
the Powers, and while Montenegro continued the 
struggle, Servia made peace with Turkey on the 1st of 
March, 1877. The war, so far as Prince Milan was 
concerned, had produced no material result, for the 
position before it had commenced was maintained. 
Russia had saved Servia by a timely ultimatum from 
the consequences of her defeats, and, thanks to the 
Powers, no loss of territory and no war indemnity 
were inflicted upon her. 

When, in Prince Milan's words, " the defence of 
the holy cause had passed into stronger hands " and 
Russia declared war against the Sultan, Servia, from 
fear of Austria, refrained for some months from 
taking part in the struggle. She looked on while 
the Roumanians invested Plevna, and it was not till 
December that the Prince resumed hostilities. In- 
voking the names of " the old heroes of Takovo," he 
crossed the frontier on this second campaign. The 
result was much more favourable to Servia than that 
of the first. In spite of severe losses from the ice 
and snow one detachment won a decisive victory at 



344 



THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SERVIA. 



Pirot, while another, commanded by the Prince in 
person, captured the ancient Servian town of Nisch, 




which since the fatal day of Kossovo, five centuries 



THE TREATY OF BERLIN. 345 

before, had been part of the Turkish Empire. Great 
was the enthusiasm of his people when Prince Milan 
entered the gates as a conqueror. Nine days later 
the victory of General Bela Markovic (afterwards 
one of the Regents) at Vranja completed the trio of 
Servian successes. The armistice and the Treaty of 
San Stefano cut short the further progress of the 
campaign. 

By that treaty Servia obtained the recognition of 
her independence, and ceased to be tributary to the 
Sultan. She was to receive a considerable accession 
of territory, including the town of Nisch. Still more 
important, in view of a future union of the Serb 
race, the south-western frontier of Servia, as drawn 
at San Stefano, would have gone close by Novi- 
bazar, and have thus come very close to that of 
Montenegro. But the Berlin Treaty of 1878, which 
replaced the abortive arrangements of San Stefano, 
provided that Servia should have territorial com- 
pensation on the side of Bulgaria rather than in the 
direction of Montenegro. A wedge was allowed to 
remain, in the shape of the Sandjak of Novibazar, 
between the two Serb states, and the right of 
garrisoning certain places in that region, which was 
conceded to Austria, has checked the aspirations of 
the Serbs for reunion quite as effectually as the 
Austrian " occupation " of Bosnia and the Herze- 
govina. On the south-east, however, Servia received 
the Bulgarian-speaking district of Pirot and was 
allowed to retain Vranja and Nisch, so that the area 
of the principality was increased by more than one- 
fourth. She undertook to pay a proportion of the 



346 THE FINAL EMANCIPATION OF SEP VIA. 

Ottoman Debt for her new territories, and took over 
the engagements of the Porte with regard to the 
railways. Finally her independence, already recog- 
nised by the Sultan at San Stefano, was affirmed by 
the Powers. Thus she was at last free in theory 
as well as in fact. The practical independence 
which she had gained when the Turkish garrisons 
were withdrawn in 1867 was formally completed by 
the solemn act of Europe in 1878. Four years later, 
on the 6th of March, 1882, the Prince was pro- 
claimed king under the title of Milan L, and Servia 
once more ranked as a kingdom. 




VII. 



THE MODERN KINGDOM OF SERVIA. 



(1882— 1896.) 



The Berlin Treaty, which was intended as a per 
manent settlement of the eternal Eastern question, 
failed to satisfy either Servia or Bulgaria. Each 
country was jealous of the other ; Servia claimed 
Vidin, Bulgaria desired Nisch and Pirot, and it was 
not long before an opportunity occurred for the dis- 
play of their mutual antipathies. On the Bulgarian 
bank of the river Timok, which forms the boundary 
between the two states, there is an uninhabited tract 
of land, called Bregova. No mention was made of it 
in the Treaty of Berlin, and accordingly the Serbs, 
who lived on the opposite bank, continued to cross 
the river for the purpose of tilling this debatable 
ground, until in the summer of 1884 a Bulgarian 
regiment drove them out. The high protective tariff, 
which the principality erected against Servia in the 
same year, increased the irritation, and when the 
union of the two Bulgarias was suddenly accom- 
plished in the autumn of 1885, it was impossible to 

347 



34$ THE MODERN KINGDOM OF SERVIA. 

hold back the Servian nation. It must be confessed 
that there was no adequate motive for war, but all 
their national susceptibilities were aroused by this 
unexpected aggrandisement of Bulgaria, and war 
both king and people would have. M. Garashanine, 
the Servian Premier, went to war " with a light heart." 
" Nous allons piquer une t$te" he said with a smile, and 
no one doubted but that Servia would win an easy 
victory over her embarrassed rival. But, as we have 
shown in the second part of this volume, the result 
was far otherwise. Servia, utterly routed at Slivnitza, 
was only saved by the intervention of an Austrian 
diplomatist from a Bulgarian occupation, and was 
fortunate to have escaped, as she had escaped in 
1877, without loss of territory or the payment of a 
war indemnity. 

The complete failure of their campaign against 
Bulgaria caused much discontent among the Serbs. 
For some time past the Government had been very 
unpopular, and party feeling had run high. In 1882 
King Milan nearly shared the fate of his predecessor 
at the hand of an officer's widow, who fired at him in 
the cathedral of Belgrade. Next year the arbitrary 
measures of the "iron minister," Cristic, led to a peasant 
insurrection, which was suppressed after considerable 
bloodshed. The party of the pretender, Prince Peter 
Karageorgevic, son-in-law of the Prince of Monte- 
negro, began once more to raise its head, and a con- 
spiracy was discovered to dethrone King Milan and 
put him in his place. To crown all came the disas- 
trous Bulgarian war, which emptied the treasury, 
enormously increased the national debt, and destroyed 



MILAN ABDICATES. 349 

such military reputation as Servia had gained in the 
second campaign of 1877. Domestic quarrels in the 
royal household soon became a public scandal. The 
king had married a beautiful Russian lady, Natalie 
Kesckho, daughter of a colonel in the Imperial army, 
who traced her descent from the old Counts of Baux. 
From the first the two disagreed, and their opposite 
political sympathies increased their private differences. 
The queen was a strong partisan of Russia, the king 
a friend of Austria ; she longed to support the Czar ; 
her husband publicly declared Panslavism to be " the 
enemy of Servia," and avowed that he would be 
neutral in any Austro-Russian war. At last he 
obtained a divorce from his wife, and at once granted 
a new and much more liberal constitution than that 
of 1869. The most important article was that which 
made all classes of the community, and not peasants 
alone, eligible as deputies, but one-fourth of the 
National Assembly was still to be nominated by the 
king. Freedom of the press and the lowering of the 
suffrage were also points of the new charter, which, 
in spite of Russian bribes, was accepted by the 
Assembly early in 1889. The king did not, however, 
long remain to guide the nation under the new con- 
stitution which he had given it. Exhausted with 
worries, domestic and political, broken in health and 
prematurely old, he suddenly resigned on the 6th of 
March of the same year in favour of his son Alexander, 
a lad of thirteen, and appointed three Regents, the 
chief of whom was the same M. Ristic, the " Cavour 
of Servia," who had been Regent during his own 
minority. 



35° 



THE MODERN KINGDOM OF SERVIA. 



The four years of the Regency were much dis- 
turbed by the continual quarrels of the ex-king and 
his consort, who asserted her right to reside per- 
manently in Servia, where she was very popular. At 
last, both she and her former husband consented to 
leave the country, which their presence had greatly 
agitated. The intrigues of the Pretender and the 
growth of Republicanism so much alarmed the royal 
couple that they made up their private differences in 




ROSE WINDOW AT KRUSEVAC. 

order to save the throne for their son. That pre- 
cocious youth showed that he possessed the firm 
character of the founder of the dynasty by suddenly 
arresting the three Regents on the night of the 1 3th 
of April, 1893, as they sat at dinner with him in the 
royal konak, or palace, at Belgrade, together with all 
his Ministers. Troops occupied the Government 
offices, and next morning the young king issued a 
proclamation, declaring himself to be of age, dis- 



ALEXANDER I. 35 I 

solving the National Assembly and announcing his 
intention to save the State from disaster. The coup 
d'etat of this boy of seventeen was completely suc- 
cessful, and its success encouraged him to another. 
At midnight on the 2 1st of May, 1894, he abolished 
the constitution granted five years before, and 
restored the old constitution of 1869, in order to 
destroy the influence of the Radical party. Europe 
recognised that Servia had a monarch of great 
determination, who was resolved to govern as well as 
reign. Whether he will put an end to the deplorable 
party strife between the three factions of Liberals, 
Progressists, and Radicals, which is the curse of his 
country, remains to be seen. But no one can help 
looking forward with interest to his career. Some 
have thought that he is destined to revive the Empire 
of Dusan, and unite once more under a common 
sceptre the scattered members of the great Servian 
family. Doubtful though this may be, one thing is 
certain, that if Servia desires to prosper, she must 
take to heart her national motto : " Unity alone can 
save the Servian people." 




PART IV. 

MONTENEGRO. 

"They rose to where their sovran eagle sails, 
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, 
Chaste, frugal, savage, armed by day and night 
Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales 
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, 
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight 
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight 
By thousands down the crags and through the vales. 
O smallest among peoples ! rough rock-throne 
Of Freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm 
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, 
Great Tsernagora ! never since thine own 
Black ridges drew the cloud and broke the storm 
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers." 

Tennyson, Nineteenth Century, May, 1877. 

" In my deliberate opinion the traditions of Montenegro, now 
committed to His Highness (Prince Nicholas) as a sacred trust, 
exceed in glory those of Marathon and Thermopylae, and all the 
war-traditions of the world." — Mr. Gladstone, October 18, 1895 

I. 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE BATTLE OF 

KOSSOVO. 

(13890 

The country on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, 

which we are accustomed to, call Montenegro or the 

" Black Mountain," is usually supposed to derive its 

name from the black forests of pines which once 

24 353 



354 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BATTLE OF KOSSOVO. 

clothed its grey limestone rocks. From the western 
half of the country, which composed the original 
principality, all vestiges of wood have long since 
disappeared, and the sea of stones, which meets the 
eye of the traveller in every direction, cannot by any 
stretch of language be called dark. It has therefore 
been suggested that the mountain took its title from 
the " Black Prince," or ' Crnoievic, who founded a 
Montenegrin dynasty in the fifteenth century. No 
trace of the name can be discovered before that period, 
and it is more rational to suppose that the country 
was called after its rulers than that the Turks gave 
it its present designation because of the " black 
hearts " of its people. But, whatever be the origin 
of the name " Montenegro " — the Venetian variant of 
the ordinary word " Monte Nero " — the fact remains 
that in such different languages as French, Italian, 
Turkish, Arabic, modern Greek, and Albanian, we 
find the country described by a name which in each 
case has the meaning of " Black Mountain." The 
title of Crnagora, which the natives have bestowed 
upon their highland home, has the same significance. 
The origin of the nation is much less obscure than 
that of its name. When the Serb kingdom fell on 
the fatal field o»f Kossovo in 1389, the mountain- 
fastnesses between the Adriatic and the valley of the 
Zeta became the last refuge of those Serb families 
who preferred freedom in a barren land to a fertile 
soil and the yoke of the Ottoman invader. The 
present inhabitants of Montenegro are descended 
from the aristocracy of ancient Servia, and a believer 
in the doctrine of heredity may detect in their ex- 



MONTENEGRIN MANNERS. 355 

quisite manners a proof of their aristocratic lineage. 
It has been truly said that the Montenegrin is the 
exact opposite of the Bulgarian. Put both in a 
drawing-room, and the Montenegrin, who has never 
bowed his neck to a foreign master, will look and 
behave like a gentleman, while the Bulgarian, but 
lately set free from the Turkish bondage, will look 
and behave like a boor. But put the two upon a 
waste plot of ground, and the Bulgarian will convert 
it into a garden of roses, while the Montenegrin will 
look on. This is the result of the national history. 
For five centuries the Montenegrins have had to fight 
for their existence. War has become the great object 
of their lives, their annals are one long series of 
heroic struggles for independence, and even now they 
have not emerged from the military into the in- 
dustrial state of society. Their history, based as it 
is in large measure upon oral tradition and the 
stirring war-songs of the native bards, reminds the 
reader at every page of the Homeric era of ancient 
Greece, with its god-like heroes, its hard-fought 
battles, its raids and forays, its ghastly trophies, and 
its kings, who, like the Vladikas of Montenegro, were 
" shepherds of the people," its chiefs in council, its 
judges in peace, its leaders in war. 

Although the existence of Montenegro as an inde- 
pendent state dates from the battle of Kossovo, the 
country had shared the vicissitudes of the Balkan 
Peninsula for several centuries before that memorable 
disaster. It was in the earliest times a part of Illyria, 
called Praevalitana by the Romans, of which Scutari 
in Albania, or Skodra, as the Turks call it, was the 



3$6 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BATTLE OF KOSSOVO. 

capital. When the Romans first crossed the Adriatic 
in 229 B.C. to suppress the piracy which crippled their 
commerce, it was against Teuta, queen of the Illyrians, 
that they directed their attacks. Teuta at first resisted, 
but was soon forced to flee, and Rizona, which is 
mentioned by Polybius as her place of refuge, is the 
present Podgorica, the largest town in Montenegro 
and its chief commercial centre. Sixty years later, 
the praetor Lucius Anicius Paulus defeated Gentius, 
King of Illyria, and pursued him to Skodra. The 
country was, however, allowed to remain independent 
for a time, and formed part of a loose confederation 
of states. Subsequently administered, like Cisalpine 
Gaul, direct from Rome, it was not formed into an 
actual province and finally united to the Roman 
Empire till the reign of Augustus. Then, as now, 
it was, in a sense, the meeting-place of the East and 
West, for Skodra was the dividing-line between the 
eastern and western dominions of the triumvirs when 
for the second time they distributed the world be- 
tween them. Henceforth Roman influence was felt 
in Montenegro and its borderlands. Roman cities 
rose at Ascrivium, the modern Cattaro, and at 
Rhizinium, the modern Risano. The labour of anti- 
quaries has laid bare the remains of Dioclea, an 
ancient town situated at the junction of the rivers 
Zeta and Moraca, not far from Podgorica, and famous 
as the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. 
Marble altars and pieces of columns still recall the 
Roman period, and Prince Nicholas possesses at 
Cetinje several silver coins, dug up at Dioclea, which 
bear the image and superscription of the Roman 



DIOCLEA. 



357 



Caesars. The numerous inscriptions which have been 
discovered in the neighbourhood prove that the 
influence of the Flavian Emperors was powerful even 
in that remote spot. Dioclea, were it in Italy or 
Greece, would be the wonder of tourists, the admira- 
tion of scholars. 




RUINS OF DTOCLEA. 
(From a photo by Mr. C. A. Miller?) 

As might have been expected from its position, 
Montenegro oscillated between the Eastern and 
Western Empires. Now it was assigned to the one, 
and now to the other. At first it was included in 
the Eastern division, but from the reign of Honorius 
down to the close of the fifth century after Christ it 
was transferred to the Western. When that fell, it 



35 8 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BATTLE OF KOSS0V6. 

came back, together with the other districts on the 
eastern shore of the Adriatic, to the Eastern Empire, 
whose ecclesiastical supremacy it had already owned. 
This was a decisive moment in its history, for it was the 
origin of that firm connection with the Eastern Church 
which has distinguished Montenegro from the Roman 
Catholic Albanians along its southern frontier. The 
inroads of the barbarians now began. Even the bare 
Montenegrin mountains became a prey to the invaders. 
In the middle of the sixth century the Slavs entered 
Illyria, as the western part of the Balkan Peninsula 
was called, in large numbers, overthrew the armies 
which met them, and swept over the land. A century 
later, the Greek Emperor Heraclius, true to the time- 
honoured policy of casting out one horde of barbarians 
by another, summoned the Croats and Serbs from the 
southern slopes of the Carpathians to repel the advance 
of the terrible Avars. Their efforts were successful. 
A Serb state, or confederation of seven states, was 
founded, and of this Montenegro became a member, 
just as it had in olden time belonged to an Illyrian 
group. At this period the Montenegrin portion of 
the confederation took its name from Dioclea, its 
principal town, and was governed by a governor, or 
Zupan, dependent upon the Grand Zupan, who pre- 
sided over the seven confederate states and was in 
his turn a vassal of the Emperor at Constantinople. 
The arrangement was somewhat similar to the 
Heptarchy in our own early history. The Zupan 
of Dioclea, like his fellows, enjoyed a large measure 
of independence, and spent a considerable portion 
of his time in fighting with his fellow-princelings. 



THE PRINCIPALITY OF THE ZETA. 359 

Whichever of them became the strongest was recog- 
nised by the rest as their head. Presently the slender 
tie between the Empire and the Serb Heptarchy 
snapped, and fresh swarms of invaders attacked the 
confederates. The Zupan of Dioclea ruled at this 
period over a much larger region than the Monte- 
negro of to-day. The village communities of the 
Herzegovina on the north, and the territory of Albania 
as far south as Skodra, the coveted coast-strip from 
Dulcigno to Cattaro and the whole shore of the 
splendid gulf to which that town gives its name, then 
obeyed the master of Dioclea. His country became 
known as the Principality of the Zeta, or Zenta, from 
the river on which his capital was situated. Gradually 
the power of the separate confederate chiefs became 
greater, and the union of the confederation looser. 
The Zupan of Dioclea first assumed the title of his 
superior lord, and then, under the name of Ban, which 
survives in the Croatia of our own time, declared him- 
self free from all federate control. Obscure as is the 
history of the old Illyrian province at this era, the 
importance of the present Montenegro is clear even 
in those misty centuries. Samuel, the famous Bul- 
garian Czar, did, indeed, succeed in destroying its 
capital. But Dioclea rose from its ashes, and in 1050 
we find its Prince proclaiming himself King of Servia. 
The celebrated Pope Hildebrand confirmed his title, 
and he reigned for thirty years in his Montenegrin 
capital over the undivided Serb race. His son, Bodin, 
succeeded him, and even extended his dominion, 
adding "lofty Bosnia" to his possessions. But discord 
broke out in his family, his descendants were unable 



360 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BATTLE OF KOSSOVO. 

to maintain his position, and the principality sank 
once more under the Imperial sway. 

But it did not long remain an appanage of the 
Greek Empire. Early in the twelfth century — as 
narrated in the third part of this book — Stephen 
Nemanja reunited the Serb states, and made them, 
including Montenegro, into a substantial kingdom. 
The Herzegovina and the valley of the Zeta were 
then separated from the western part of the present 
principality, and formed three of the nine divisions 
into which he split up his kingdom. From that date, 
down to the downfall of the Serb monarchy at Kos- 
sovo, the history of Montenegro is part and parcel 
of that of Servia, which has already been described. 
A Zupan or Ban continued to reside at Dioclea, but 
for the next two hundred years he was nothing more 
than a Serb viceroy. The place continued, however, 
to have more than local importance. Its situation 
at the confluence of two rivers, not far from the Lake 
of Scutari and the coast, combined with its historic 
traditions to prevent it sinking to the level of a 
village. It was the seat of an Archbishop, whose 
jurisdicti&n extended over the wild mountaineers and 
lonely shepherds of the region beyond the river ; St. 
Sava, the saint whom every true Serb reveres, dwelt 
within its walls, and thence issued his orders to the 
Serb priesthood far and near. From him the first 
Bishop of Montenegro received consecration, and it 
was at his call that a council of holy men met at 
Dioclea to consider the best remedy for the abuses 
in the Church. Rather more than a century later, 
the great hero of Serb legend, Stephen Dusan, was 



RISE OF BALSHA. 36 1 

made viceroy of all the old Principality of the Zeta 
by his father, the King of Servia, and transferred the 
seat of government to Skodra. Dioclea vanishes from 
view in the fourteenth century, and is now only a heap 
of marble ruins. 

During the reign of Stephen Dusan there lived in 
the Principality of Zeta a noble Serb named Balsha, 
whose family is thought to have come from Baux in 
Anjou and settled on the eastern coast of the Adriatic 
a generation earlier. Balsha was a man of some local 
importance at the death of Dusan, and took advan- 
tage of the weakness of the great monarch's successor 
to seize the fortress of Skodra and make himself 
master of the lower part of the Zeta as far as the 
walls of Cattaro. His three sons further extended 
his conquests ; the western half of the present Princi- 
pality of Montenegro came beneath their sway, and 
the proud Republic of Ragusa did not disdain their 
alliance. When Lazar mounted the Servian throne 
the power of the Balsha family grew in all directions. 
Their sovereignty stretched as far as Valona m 
Albania on the one side, and included Trebinje in 
the Herzegovina on the other. They even made war 
with ten thousand men against Stephen Tvartko, the 
redoubtable King of Bosnia. Both combatants found 
willing allies. The city of Cattaro joined Tvartko, 
the Republic of Ragusa aided the Balshas, and the 
latter compelled Cattaro to sue for peace. A little 
later a much more dangerous foe appeared upon their 
frontiers. The Turks were advancing through Alba- 
nia, and the chief of the Balshas at once set out to 
oppose them. The attempt was useless ; Balsha's 



362 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO BATTLE OF K0SS0V6. 

army was annihilated, and his head carried as a 
trophy to the Turkish Vizier. George Balsha II., 
who succeeded him, endeavoured to strengthen his 
position by a great alliance. He accordingly married 
the daughter of King Lazar of Servia, who was the 
widow of Sisman, King of Bulgaria. But his close 
relationship with the Servian sovereign availed him 
little. His subjects were ready to hand over the Zeta 
to Tvartko of Bosnia; the Turks were daily approach- 
ing, and had seized Durazzo, Antivari, and Budua in 
rapid succession. They even traversed the valley of 
the Zeta, and threatened the heights of Ostrog and 
the plain of Niksic, the scenes of many a Turkish 
defeat in the later annals of Montenegro. George 
Balsha signed a disastrous peace, by which he sur- 
rendered part of Albania to the invaders. But at the 
time of the battle of Kossovo in 1389 he still ruled 
over a large tract of territory, stretching from Ragusa 
to the mouth of the Drin, south of Dulcigno, the 
south of the Herzegovina and the whole of Western 
Montenegro, with Skodra as a capital. In that great 
battle he and his people took no part, for he was on 
his way to join his father-in-law with all his forces 
when the fatal news arrived. He returned at once to 
his own land, determined to defend his mountains 
to the last gasp against the Turk. Many a noble 
Serb family sought safety under his protection ; 
Montenegro became the asylum of the Serb race, 
the house of free men struggling for their liberty. 
Every Montenegrin looks back to the great disaster 
of Kossovo with the same keen regret as if it had 
happened but last year. Every rising of the Serb 



THE MONTENEGRIN CAP. 



363 



race is justified by the national bards as revenge for 
Kossovo, and, more striking still, the headgear of the 
mountaineers bears even in our own days the traces 
of the national grief. The crimson pork-pie cap, or 
kapa, which the Montenegrins, female as well as male, 
wear, has a broad border of black silk as a token of 
mourning for that defeat ; the crimson centre signifies 
the sea of blood with which the Black Mountain has 
been washed since then ; and the five gold bands, 
which enclose in one corner the initials of the Prince 
(" H.I.,"or Nicholas I.) in Cyrillic characters, represent 
the five centuries of Montenegro's stormy history. 




II. 



FROM THE BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO THE LAST OF 
THE BLACK PRINCES. 



(1389—1516.) 



George BALSHA was not long allowed to remain 
unmolested in his mountain retreat. While Durazzo 
voluntarily surrendered to the growing power of 
Venice, which had already obtained facilities for her 
commerce in the Principality of the Zeta, the Prince 
was compelled to buy the aid of the mighty Republic 
of St. Mark against the Turks. The price was a 
high one, but it was paid, for the need was great. 
Venice received, in 1394, from Balsha, his capital of 
Skodra in exchange for a petty fortress and an 
annual subsidy of a thousand gold ducats, the first 
instance of such an annuity being paid by a foreign 
state to a Montenegrin Prince. But the assistance 
of the Republic was less valuable to Balsha than the 
diversion created by Timour the Tartar's defeat and 
capture of the Sultan Bajazet in 1402 at the battle 
of Angora. For a brief space the land had rest from 
the Turks, and George Balsha's son, the last of the 
dynasty, who succeeded his father three years later, 

364 



THE BLACK PRINCE. 365 

was bold enough to recapture Skodra and the other 
places in the Principality occupied by the Venetians. 
A series of campaigns followed, in which the 
Montenegrins and Venetians were alternately success- 
ful. Mariano Caravella, the Republican commander, 
reconquered Skodra and most of the lower Zeta. 
But Balsha, who had fled with his mother, speedily 
came back and once more drove out the Venetian 
garrisons. The proud Doge was compelled to seek 
an intermediary between the valiant mountaineers 
and himself. A treaty was concluded ; Venice gave 
up most of the territory which she had acquired in 
the Principality, and agreed to pay to Balsha the 
subsidy promised to his father. But the peace was 
soon disregarded. Stephen Crnoievic, the " Black 
Prince," of whom we now hear for the first time, and 
whose race played an important part in Montenegrin 
history, possessed the confidence of Balsha, whose 
relative he was on the female side. Acting on 
Stephen's advice, Balsha summoned his forces and 
attacked Skodra, the great object of contention 
between Venice and himself. The Venetians were 
now seriously alarmed. Two of their ablest com- 
manders, Bembo and Dandolo, were unable to retake 
the town, and, as a last resort, they sent an envoy to 
Constantinople to ask the aid of the Sultan. But 
even the assistance of eight thousand Turkish troops 
availed but little against the stubborn valour of 
the Montenegrins. A fresh Venetian force under 
another general was sent, only to be twice defeated, 
and at last, in 1421, the Republic was compelled to 
sue for peace. It was no small triumph for these 



366 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

undisciplined bands of Highland warriors to have 
humbled two such redoubtable foes. Balsha, how- 
ever, did not long enjoy the fruits of his victories. 
In the same year he died while on a visit to Servia, 
and with him his dynasty became extinct. 

Balsha had appointed his relative, the " Black 
Prince," regent during his absence, but an inter- 
regnum lasted for some years after his death. 
Montenegro, at this period, was very far from being 
a compact state ; it consisted of loose agglomera- 
tions of territory, varying in size according to the 
fortunes of war, and inhabited by a migratory popu- 
lation of shepherds and exiles. From every neigh- 
bouring land the persecuted or the lawless fled thither 
for refuge, and a community was thus formed in the 
fastnesses of the Black Mountain, much in the same 
way that Rome herself was founded. Every man 
who had weapons and knew how to use them was 
welcome there, and when one of the inhabitants fell 
in battle, another soon filled his place. When not 
engaged in fighting, the people looked after their 
flocks of mountain sheep, and the early occupation of 
these primitive mountaineers has left its mark upon 
the geography of the country in the name of 
Katunska, or " shepherds' huts," which is still applied 
to the nahia, or district, in which Cetinje is situated. 
The Crnoievic dynasty, however, which held sway for 
the next three generations, consolidated the inde- 
pendence of the Black Mountain. At first, however, 
Stephen Crnoievic showed no desire to rule over so 
wild a land. He had retired to Italy on the death of 
Balsha, and only the entreaties of the people, who 



MONTENEGRO INDEPENDENT. 367 

needed a leader, brought him back. Meanwhile, the 
Venetians had renewed hostilities. One after another 
the fortresses of the lower Zeta fell into their hands. 
Stephen Lazarevic, the King of Servia, intervened as 
Balsha's next of kin, and in two campaigns inflicted 
severe defeats upon the Venetian armies. Skodra 
itself, after a long siege, surrendered to George 
Brankovic, his nephew, who was invested by 
Lazarevic with the overlordship of the Zeta. The 
Venetians recognised him as ruler of the Principality, 
and promised to pay him the usual annuity of one 
thousand ducats in exchange for the town of Skodra. 

But the people were not disposed to admit the 
shadowy claims of the phantom King of Servia. 
That latter country was for all practical purposes 
dependent on the Turk, and Montenegro has never 
owned the suzerainty of the Sultan. Accordingly, 
Stephen Crnoievic was summoned from Italy, and 
had made himself master of the Zeta before his rival 
had ever arrived in the Principality. Brankovic 
wisely gave way before the superior claims of his 
popular competitor. He shortly after succeeded to 
the throne of Servia, and left the " Black Prince " 
undisturbed. But to mark the complete independence 
of their land from the fallen monarchy of Servia, the 
people gave to their new ruler the title of Voivode, or 
Duke, of the Zeta, a title which is borne to-day by 
one of the present Prince's sons. 

Stephen Crnoievic, at his succession, found himself 
lord of a large expanse of country. The whole of 
the present Principality of Montenegro, all the islands 
in the Lake of Skodra, and the shores of the Bocche 



368 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

di Cattaro, belonged to him ; but Skodra itself, which 
had been regarded by his predecessors as their capital 
since the decline of Dioclea, was still under the 
Venetian sway. He accordingly fortified Zabljak, at 
present a town of one thousand inhabitants, not far 
from the north-east shore of the Lake of Skodra, and 
made it his capital. His reign was at first an almost 
continuous struggle with the Turks. M. VacHk, the 
late secretary of the Prince and an excellent authority 
on Montenegrin history, estimated that in the twelve 
years between 1424 and 1436 there were no fewer 
than sixty-three battles with, and sixty-three victories 
over, the Ottoman armies. Foreseeing the dangers of 
a Turkish invasion, the " Black Prince " came to terms 
with Venice, and on the island of Vranina, in the 
Lake of Skodra, a solemn league and convention was 
signed. The Republic promised to pay him a subsidy 
such as she had paid to the Balshas, and he agreed to 
assist her in time of war. As soon as he found that 
the Turks were too much occupied with their enemies 
in Asia Minor, Servia, and Albania, to farther molest 
him in his own country, he joined his forces to that 
of his relative, George Castriotes, or Skanderbeg, who 
had headed the Albanian tribes against the Ottoman 
invaders. Skanderbeg is the most remarkable name 
in the records of Albania. Round his heroic figure all 
the legendary glories of that strange and incompre- 
hensible race centre. As a boy of nine years of age, 
he was brought to the court of Murad II., who had 
him educated in the faith of Islam, loaded him with 
favours, and gave him the command of a troop of 
horse with the title of Bey. It was from this title. 



SKANDERBEG. 369 

corrupted by the Christians into Beg, and joined with 
Iskander or Skander, the Turkish form of Alexander, 
that Skanderbeg derived the name by which he still 
lives in Albanian history. On many a field the 
young Bey fought under the standard of the Crescent, 
but the tragic death of his father at the hands of the 
Turks determined him to become his avenger. At a 
critical moment, when the fortune of battle was un- 
decided, he deserted to the enemy, proclaimed himself 
Prince of Albania, and declared war against the 
unbelievers. From that moment he became the 
heart and soul of the Christian cause. The national 
ballads tell how he slew two thousand Turks with his 
own hand ; and when he died, the Sultan exclaimed 
with relief that the Christians had " lost their buckler 
and the arm which protected them." Stephen 
Crnoievic and his two sons, Ivan and George, fought 
gallantly by his side, and Mohammed II., the future 
conqueror of Constantinople, was routed by the 
Montenegrins in a narrow defile and forced to beat 
an ignominious retreat into Macedonia. Soliman 
Pasha, who was sent to ravage the lower Zeta in 
revenge for this defeat, succeeded in enticing the 
mountaineers into the open, where their army was 
almost annihilated. But the siege of Constantinople 
provided the Turkish forces with other occupation, 
and Montenegro was spared. 

Stephen Crnoievic died about 1466, and was buried 
in the little monastery on the island of Kom in the 
Lake of Skodra, which he had founded. His eldest 
son Ivan, surnamed the Black, succeeded him, and 
with the new ruler commences a new era in the 

25 



37© BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

history of the mountain state. For the reign of Ivan 
witnessed the downfall of the last of those bulwarks 
which had hitherto stemmed the tide of Ottoman 
invasion in its advance upon Montenegro. The 
Turkish conquest of Servia in 1459, and Bosnia in 
1463, was followed in 1476 by the subjugation of the 
Herzegovina, while the death of Skanderbeg left 
Albania at the mercy of the Mussulman. Montenegro 
was henceforth the refuge of fugitives not merely 
from Servia, but from all the South Slavonic lands ; 
the beach, as Mr. Gladstone has said, upon which all 
that remained from the wreck of Balkan freedom was 
cast up by the waves. From this time onwards the 
Montenegrins fought for their very existence, and at 
the same time, in saving themselves, they saved others 
too. It is no exaggeration to say that Italy herself 
owes a debt of gratitude to this handful of warriors, 
who acted as her outpost on the farther shore of the 
Adriatic against the Turk. But neither from Venice 
nor from any other Italian city did they receive much 
assistance in their own hour of need. So long as 
the Venetian possessions were in actual danger, the 
Republic of St. Mark was glad to accept Ivan's 
assistance. When Soliman Pasha besieged Scutari 
in 1474, with an army of seventy thousand men, it 
was he and his people who raised the siege, and when 
Mohammed II. renewed the attempt in person four 
years later, Ivan in vain tried to create a diversion 
and so save the place. Venice did, indeed, confer 
upon him and his heirs for ever the title of patrician 
and his name was inscribed in the Golden Book of 
the Republic. But when Skodra fell, Ivan had to 



CETINJE THE CAPITAL. 37 1 

defend himself and his capital of Zabljak single- 
handed. Mohammed II. and his successor resolved to 
root out the bold allies of Venice, who had dared to 
resist the Ottoman power. Meanwhile the Republic 
of St. Mark looked on, heedless of Ivan's appeals for 
aid, while the Turks came nearer. To assist the 
Montenegrins would have injured the commerce of 
Venice with the Levant. Ivan, abandoned by those 
for whom he had done so much, took the bold 
resolution of setting fire to Zabljak and seeking a 
new capital in a safer spot, rather than allow it to 
fall a prey to the Turks. The year 1484 witnessed 
this important event. Zabljak was destroyed, and 
Ivan and his warriors retired to the lofty plateau of 
Cetinje, four thousand feet above the sea. From that 
time onwards Cetinje has been the Montenegrin 
capital. The site is not an ideal one, for the plain, 
in which the town stands, is often blocked by snow 
in winter, and the situation is not so central as could 
be desired. But the recent idea of transferring the 
seat of government to Niksic, which has much to 
recommend it, has been hindered by considerations of 
expense, and Cetinje, though several times plundered 
by the Turks, has always risen, phcenix-like, from its 
ashes. There Ivan built the monastery called after 
his name, which, after its destruction in 17 14, was 
restored in the form which it still possesses. There, 
too, he established the see of a bishop, with authority 
over the Zeta. The lower part of that region now 
fell under the sway of the Turks and was annexed 
to the district of which Skodra was the chief town. 
Deserted by the Venetians, robbed of the most fer- 



372 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

tile portion of his territory and driven back to the 
wilderness of rocks which separates the Zeta valley 
from the sea, Ivan offered his people the alternative 
of holding out to the last gasp under his command, 
or of finding another prince, who would make terms 
for them with the Turks. As for himself, he vowed 
that he would never surrender. The answer of the 
Montenegrins was unhesitatingly given. They swore 
to serve him till death, and promised that, while they 
would never provoke an attack from the Turks, they 
would defend themselves, if attacked, with might and 
main. Every Montenegrin who should be coward enough 
to leave the battlefield was condemned to an insulting 
punishment. Deprived of his arms, the craven was 
to be dressed in woman's garb, a spindle put in his 
hand, and then the wives and maidens of the Black 
Mountain would drive him before them over the 
border with blows as an exile and a renegade. The 
vow was worthy of the nation which took it, and the 
Spartan mother, who bade her son return either with 
his shield or on it, found imitators in Montenegro. 
As late as the Montenegrin code of the present 
centifry we find similar enactments against cowardice, 
and to-day the same spirit, which animated the 
subjects of Ivan the Black, breathes in their de- 
scendants. 

For the rest of his reign he was unmolested, and 
devoted himself to the erection of a fortress at Obod, 
near Rjeka, and to the foundation of the first Monte- 
negrin printing-press at the same spot. His son and 
successor, George Crnoievic, anxious that his country 
should be no longer dependent upon Venice for its 



the press At obod. 373 

books of devotion, continued his father's work at 
Obod. Type of extreme beauty was obtained from 
abroad, and the first volumes ever printed in Cyrillic 
character were issued from the Montenegrin Press. 
The earliest of them, published in 1493, or only 
twenty-two years after Caxton set up his press at 
Westminster, was a missal, of which a page is still 
preserved in the monastery at Cetinje, while two 
years later a psalter and a ritual were produced. 
Montenegro may well be proud of such an early 
advancement of learning at a time when even great 
nations had hardly adopted the new invention. In 
1893, the four hundredth anniversary of this Slavonic 
printing-press was celebrated with much rejoicing, as 
one of the most memorable events in the history of 
the nation. Unfortunately, the Turks destroyed the 
machinery in one of their numerous invasions. It 
was not till 1832 that the art of printing was reintro- 
duced into the country, and to-day a few pieces of 
stone in the churchyard are all that remains of the 
press at Obod. 

Ivan the Black died in 1490, while his son George 
was returning from Venice with the noble Venetian 
lady whom he had chosen as his bride. The memory 
of the second Crnoievic Prince lingers even now 
among the people, whom he prepared so boldly for 
the dangers which lay before them in the centuries 
to come. With him the unceasing struggle with the 
Turks may be said to have begun ; under him the 
fastnesses of Western Montenegro, the • kernel of 
the present State, with Cetinje as capital, became 
the stronghold of resistance to the Ottoman sway. 



374 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

His name lingers in the monastery which he founded 
and where he was buried, in springs of water, in caves, 
and in many an ancient ruin. And a picturesque 
ballad represents him as sleeping in a fairy grotto 
above his castle at Obod, like Kaiser Barbarossa in 
the German legend, till the hour when the trumpet 
shall awaken him to lead the Montenegrin nation to 
the conquest of Albania. The reign of Ivan the 
Black has also prompted one of the finest poems of 
the national muse. The story of his elder son. 
Stanicha, or Maximus, and his betrothal to the 
daughter of the Venetian Doge Mocenigo, doubtless 
contains much that is of historical value, though the 
facts have been embellished by the fancy of the bard. 
" ' Listen to me, Doge,' writes Black Ivan to the lord 
of mighty Venice, ' men say that thou hast in thy 
house the fairest of roses, and I have in mine the 
fairest of pinks. Doge, let us unite the rose with 
the pink.' The Doge of Venice answers in a flatter- 
ing tone, and Ivan hies him to his court, with three 
loads of gold, to woo the fair Latin in the name of 
his son. When he had lavished all his gold, the 
Latins promised him that the marriage should take 
place at the next vintage. Ivan, wise though he was, 
yet uttered foolish words as he departed. ' Friend 
and Doge,' quoth he, ' soon shalt thou see me return 
with six hundred chosen comrades ; and, if among 
them all there be one fairer than my son Stanicha, 
give me neither dower nor bride.' The Doge rejoiced 
and shook his hand and gave him the golden apple, 
symbol of wedlock and of beauty. So Ivan returned 
unto his own people. And as he came near to his . 



STORY OF ST AN IC HA. 375 

castle of Zabljak, his faithful spouse spied him from 
the turret and rushed forth to meet him, and covered 
the borders of his cloak with kisses and carried his 
terrible weapon with her own hands into the tower 
and placed before the hero a chair of silver. So the 
winter passed away amid rejoicings. But when spring 
came, small-pox fell upon Stanicha and marked his 
face all over. So, when autumn drew near, and the 
old Prince had gathered his six hundred comrades 
together, it was, alas! easy for him to find among 
them a warrior fairer than his son. Then his brow 
was wrinkled, and the black moustache, which reached 
even to his shoulders, grew limp. His spouse, aware 
of his grief, rebuked him for the pride which had led 
him to seek an alliance with the proud Latins. Ivan, 
stung by her reproaches, raged like a living fire ; he 
would hear no more of the nuptials, and bade his 
comrades depart to their homes. Years passed away ; 
when, on a sudden, a ship arrives with a message from 
the Doge. ' When thou enclosest the hedges of a 
meadow, thou dost mow it or else leave it to another, 
that the snows of winter may not spoil the grass. 
When thou askest and dost obtain the hand of a fair 
maid in marriage, thou must come and fetch her, or 
else write and set her free from her engagement.' 

" Jealous of his word, Ivan decided at last to go 
to Venice. He assembled all his noble brothers-in- 
arms from Dulcigno and Antivari, the Drekalovic, the 
Kontchi, the Bratonic, the falcons of Podgorica and 
the sons of Paul the White, the Vassoievic and all 
the chivalry as far as the green waters of the Lim. 
He bade all the warriors come, each in the garb of 



376 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

his tribe, and all in their goodliest array, that the 
Latins might marvel at the splendour of the Serbs. 
Many things do they possess, those noble Latins ; 
they can work metals with skill and weave precious 
stuffs, but what is more enviable still, they lack the 






MONTENEGRIN MILITARY INSIGNIA. 

lofty brow, the sovereign look, of the sons of the 
Black Mountain. 

" And when the six hundred comrades were 
assembled, Ivan told them of the rash promise which 
he had made to the Doge, and the divine punishment 



STJN/CHa's UOO/Ai 



377 



which had fallen upon his son, smitten with the small- 
pox, and added : ' Brothers, let us put one of you in 
place of Stanicha on the journey, and give him on 
our return half the presents, offered to him as the 
real bridegroom.' All the comrades applauded this 
device, and the young lord of Dulcigno, Obrenovo 
Djuro, who was recognised as the fairest of them all, 





MONTENEGRIN MILITARY INSIGNIA. 



was begged to play the part. Long did he refuse, 
and it needed the richest gifts to make him consent. 
Then, crowned with flowers, the comrades set sail. 
The whole artillery of the Black Mountain saluted 
them at their departure, and the two huge cannons 
Kcrnio and Selenko, which have not their like in the 
seven Frank kingdoms, nor yet among the Turks. 



378 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

" Arrived at Venice, they are received at the Doge's 
Palace. The festivities of the betrothal last a week, 
and then Ivan cries unto the Doge : ' My friend, our 
mountains call us home.' Then the Doge rises and 
calls for the bridegroom Stanicha. All point to 
Djuro, and the Doge gives him the kiss and the 
golden apple of wedlock. The Doge's two sons 
approach, bearing two inlaid muskets worth a 
thousand ducats. They embrace him as their sister's 
husband, and give him their presents. After them 
come the two sisters-in-law of the Doge, each with 
a robe of the finest linen, woven with gold. Satisfied 
with the success of their device, Ivan and the men 
of the Black Mountain return to their own land." 

The bride then learnt the trick which had been 
played upon her. But, according to the legend, she 
had less objection to give up her handsome Djuro 
than to relinquish the share of the bridal presents, 
which he claimed as his due for the part he had 
played. " ' I cannot,' she cried to Stanicha, with tears 
in her eyes, ' part with this wondrous gold tunic 
woven by my hands, beneath which I dreamed of 
caressing my husband. It has well-nigh cost me my 
two eyes, while I laboured night and day for three 
years at it. Thou must fight to recover it, even 
though a thousand splinters of lances should be thy 
bier, or else I will turn my horse's head and ride 
down to the seashore. There I will gather an aloe- 
leaf ; with its thorns I will tear my face, and with the 
blood of my own cheeks I will write a letter, which 
my falcon will bear swiftly to mighty Venice, whence 
my faithful Latins will hasten to avenge me.' At 



ST A NIC H A* S CRIME. $7Q 

these words Stanicha lashed his black charger ; like 
a tiger it sprang forth till it reached Djuro. Stanicha 
struck him with his javelin in the middle of the brow, 
and the fair lord fell at the mountain foot." 

The results of this crime were disastrous for Monte- 
negro. The " comrades " of the legend challenged 
one another to battle ; all day long they fought, and 
in the evening the plain was strewn with the slain. 
But Stanicha fled on horseback to Zabljak, leaving 
his wife to go back to Venice. From Zabljak the 




MONTENEGRIN MILITAR. INSIGNIA. 

murderer went to Constantinople, embraced the faith 
of Islam, and offered to reduce his native country 
under the Sultan's sway. The attempt was unsuc- 
cessful. His younger brother George, who had 
followed Ivan as Prince of the Black Mountain, 
defeated him at Lieckopolje, and he withdrew first 
to Skodra, of which he became Pasha, and then to 
the Albanian village of Bouchati, where his family 
settled and took the name of Bouchatlia. Three 
centuries later we shall find Kara Mahmoud, one of 
Stanicha's descendants, the bitterest foe of Monte- 
negro, and it was only sixty years ago that Moustapha 



380 BATTLE 6P KOSSdVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

Bouchatlia, the last of the race, was driven by the 
Sultan from Albania. But the apostasy of Stanicha 
had a still more fatal influence upon the future of the 
Black Mountain. The renegade Montenegrins who 
had been taken prisoners after Stanicha's defeat were 
all allowed to remain and practise their new faith in 
their old country. Ready at all times to join hands 
with the Turkish invaders, these Mussulman inhabi- 
tants became a constant source of danger to the prin- 
cipality. The terrible " Montenegrin Vespers " in the 
reign of Danilo I. were the result. 

George Crnoievic, allied as he was to a noble Vene- 
tian lady, and destitute of the martial qualities of his 
father, soon longed for safety and civilisation, neither 
of which he could find in his mountain home. It 
is not certain whether Stanicha invaded the Black 
Mountain a second time in 1496 and drove him out, 
or whether he retired of his own accord to Venice 
in that year, thus setting an example which was 
followed by the last of his successors. One account 
of his death says that it occurred in his Venetian 
palace ; another that it took place in Asiatic Turkey, 
where he is said to have received large domains 
from the Turks. At any rate, his cousin Stephen 
succeeded him in 1496 and made good his title over 
Cetinje and the mountains, where the former inhabi- 
tants of Zeta had now finally entrenched themselves. 
From this time the name of Montenegro became the 
designation of the principality. But Stephen himself 
is a mere shadow. It is clear from the letters of 
Stanicha, which have recently been published, that 
Stephen and the renegade Pasha of Skodra lived upon 



BISHOP BABY LAS. 38 1 

good terms, although the latter grandiloquently de- 
scribes himself as " lord of the Black Mountain." On 
Stephen's death, in 151 5, no opposition was offered to 
the succession of his son Ivan, who a few months 
later made way for his son George. This prince, the 
last of the Crnoievic rulers of Montenegro, remained 
barely a year in his rough domain. The son of one 
Venetian lady and the husband of another, himself a 
patrician of the Republic and long time a resident on 
her lagoons, he had the utmost distaste for a life of 
solitude and privation in the monastery at Cetinje. 
His wife joined her complaints to his own. Without 
society and amusements, she sighed for the gaiety of 
her home, and her husband readily agreed to leave 
Montenegro for ever. He summoned the chiefs and 
people, told them his intentions, and entrusted them 
with the weapons which his great ancestors Stephen 
and Ivan the Black had wielded in defence of their 
liberties. To the Bishop Babylas, as the next most 
important personage to himself, he confided the task 
of governing the country. Thus it came about that 
Montenegro, like some of the German States in 
mediaeval times, was ruled by an ecclesiastic, who 
combined the functions of priest, lawyer, and leader 
in war. This arrangement, commenced in 1516, con- 
tinued in one form or another down to 185 1, and the 
Vladikas or Prince Bishops of the Black Mountain 
formed a curious exception to the usual class from 
which sovereigns are selected. The Bishop's selec- 
tion having been ratified by the assembled chiefs 
and people, George and his wife, accompanied by not 
a few Montenegrin nobles, set sail from Cattaro. It 



3 32 BATTLE OF KOSSOVO TO LAST OF BLACK PRINCES. 

was a sad spectacle, this parting of Prince and people. 
Under the Crnoievic family, the Black Mountain had 
preserved its liberties from the Turks when every 
other neighbouring land had been subdued. People 
wondered if its independence could be maintained in 
the future. 




III. 



THE ELECTIVE VLADIKAS. 



(i 5 16—1696.) 



The appointment of the Bishop as ruler of Monte- 
negro saved that country from the fate which had 
befallen Servia and Bosnia. Raised by his ecclesiasti- 
cal functions above all the chieftains, who would have 
resented the elevation of one of their own number 
over their heads, the Bishop was the greatest security 
against civil war. At the same time a dignitary of 
the Church was the last person likely to commit an 
act of apostasy such as that which was so keenly 
remembered in Montenegro. But it was not the in- 
tention of George Crnoievic that the Bishop should 
have no one to assist him in the work of government. 
Accordingly, an official, known as the civil governor, 
was appointed, whose special duty it was to superin- 
tend the military defence of the country. The civil 
governor, invariably chosen from the head-men of the 
Katunska nahia or district, in which Cetinje is 
situated, was, however, subordinate to the Vladika. 
There was thus no rivalry between them. The civil 



384 THE ELECTIVE VLADIKAS. 

governor, although the dignity came to be hereditary 
in certain noble families, while that of the Vladika 
was for long only elective, knew his place, and the 
only attempt at usurpation in the long history of the 
office led to its abolition in 1832. The history of 
Japan furnishes us with an almost exact parallel, for 
the relations between the Mikado and the Tycoon 
were until lately almost similar. The only personage 
to whom the Prince-Bishop owed allegiance was the 
Serb Patriarch of Ipek, who once in every seven 
years visited his diocese and consecrated every fresh 
Montenegrin prelate. 

For one hundred and eighty years after their first 
appointment, the Vladikas were elected by the chiefs 
and people — an arrangement which was ultimately 
abandoned in favour of the hereditary system. During 
the greater part of this period the history of the 
country consisted of little more than one continuous 
struggle for existence against the Turks, amid which 
it is difficult to distinguish the shadowy figures of the 
successive prelates. Babylas himself was allowed to 
reign in peace, devoting his attention to the printing- 
press at Obod, which issued books of devotion, 
still extant, bearing his name on the title-page. 

* 

His successor, German, was not left unmolested. A 
pretender, one of the Crnoievic family who had turned 
Mussulman, invaded the principality just as Stanicha, 
thirty years before, and with the same result Vouko- 
tic, the civil governor, repulsed the renegade, and 
such was the zeal of the Montenegrins for the Chris- 
tian cause, that they marched into Bosnia and raised 
the siege of Jajce, where the Hungarian garrison was 



DESTRUCTION OF THE PRESS. 385 

closely hemmed in by the troops of the Sultan. The 
Turks were too much occupied with the Hungarian 
war to take revenge, and it was not till 1570 that 
Montenegro had to face another Ottoman invasion. 
The next three Vladikas, Paul, Nicodin, and Maka- 
rios, availed themselves of this long period of repose 
to increase the publications of the press, and numerous 
psalters and translations of the Gospels were pro- 
duced in this small and remote principality. But 
the Turkish governors of Skodra revived the claims 
of Stanicha to the Montenegrin throne. AH, Pasha 
of that district, defeated in his first attack, renewed it 
with disastrous results to Montenegro. Pachomije, 
the Prince-Bishop at that moment, was unable to 
reach Ipek for the ceremony of consecration, and his 
authority was therefore weakened in the eyes of his 
people. The renegades, allowed to settle in the 
country at the time of Stanicha's defeat, welcomed 
the Pasha's army with open arms, and, thanks to 
their treachery, he was able to seize the fortress of 
Obod and destroy the precious printing-press, which 
Ivan the Black had established there a century earlier. 
The national historians are silent upon the subject of 
the haratch, or tribute, which the invaders are said to 
have exacted from the inhabitants of the free moun- 
tain, and which defrayed the cost of the Sultan's 
slippers. But there can be no doubt that Monte- 
negro suffered greatly from the depredations of AH. 
The refusal of its high-spirited people to pay tribute 
any longer may have been the cause of the Pasha's 
invasion in 1604 during the reign of Bishop Rufin, 
when the Turks were driven back with heavy loss 

26 



386 THE ELECTIVE VLADIKAS. 

Eight years later the Sultan determined that he 
would sweep the defiant mountaineers off the face of 
the earth. An army of twenty-five thousand men 
was despatched against the principality. The decisive 
battle took place not far from Podgorica. But the 
Turkish cavalry was useless in such a country. The 
small band of Montenegrins held their ground, the 
enemy threw himself against their rocks in vain, and 
the flower of the Ottoman chivalry was left dead on 
the field. Next year a still larger force was collected 
by Arslan Pasha, and if wars were always decided by 
mere numbers the fate of Montenegro would have 
been sealed, for the invaders were twice as numerous 
as the whole population of the principality. Six 
months were occupied in skirmishes and ambuscades, 
and it was not till the 10th of September, 161 3, that 
the two armies met on the spot where Stanicha had 
been defeated more than a century before. The 
Montenegrins, although assisted by some neighbour- 
ing tribes, were completely outnumbered. But their 
valour and prowess were out of proportion to their 
numbers. Seldom have the Turks received so over- 
whelming a blow. Arslan Pasha was wounded, and 
the heads of his second-in-command and a hundred 
other Turkish officers were carried off and stuck on 
the ramparts of Cetinje. The Ottoman troops fled in 
disorder ; many were drowned in the waters of the 
Moraca, many more fell by the swords of their 
pursuers. No quarter was given. 

Much light is thrown upon the condition of Monte- 
negro at this period and the causes of its invariable 
success in war even against fearful odds are explained 



CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 387 

by the accounts of a contemporary writer, Mariano 
Bolizza. This author, a patrician of Venice, residing 
at Cattaro in the early part of the seventeenth century, 
spent a considerable time in the Black Mountain, and 
published in 1614 a description of the country. At 
that time the whole male population available for 
war consisted of 8,027 persons, distributed among the 
ninety-three villages which Montenegro contained. 
But these few warriors were continually practising. 
The rapidity of their manoeuvres was extraordinary, 
and for guerilla warfare they were unrivalled. In 
battle they always took care to have the advantage 
of the ground. Their rocks afforded shelter, from 
which they could aim at their enemies in the open, 
and they made the most of the smallest cover. The 
women, accustomed from their infancy to lift heavy 
burdens, could roll huge masses of rock down upon 
the heads of an advancing army, and the Turkish 
cavalry, invincible in a champaign country, was 
helpless in that sea of limestone. A high military 
authority, after a visit to the Black Mountain, has 
recently stated that he perfectly understood the 
failure of the Turks to capture it. 

The condition of the country at this period was 
naturally unsettled. War was the chief occupation 
of its inhabitants from sheer necessity, and the arts 
of peace languished. The printing-press, so active a 
century earlier, had ceased to exist ; the control of 
the Prince-Bishop over the five nahic, or districts, 
which then composed the principality, was loose ; the 
capital itself was a mere village of a few houses. 
Still, even then, there was a system of local govern- 



3 88 



THE ELECTIVE VLADIKAS. 



ment. Each nahia was divided into tribes, or 
plemena, each presided over by a headman or kniez, 
who acted as a judge in disputes between the tribes- 
men. 

The successes of the Montenegrins gained them 
notoriety outside the borders of their own country. 
Accordingly, when Charles de Nevers, the last 




A TYPICAL BIT OF MONTENEGRIN SCENERY. 
(From a photo, by Mr. C. A . Miller?) 

descendant of the Paleologi, planned his new crusade 
against the Sultan with the support of Cardinal 
Richelieu in 1614, he invited the Montenegrin warriors 
to assist him. He found them nothing loth, but they 
declined to move until he began. The accidental 
destruction of his ships put an end to the crusade, 



CETINJE CAPTURED. 389 

and the whole affair ended in smoke. Another 
similar attempt, made a little later by a son of 
Mohammed III., named Jahja, who had embraced 
Christianity and styled himself Count of Montenegro, 
was equally futile. This adventurer, whose life was 
one long romance, laid claim to the throne of Con- 
stantinople, and at the head of a body of Montene- 
grins made a foray into Turkish territory. But the 
inhabitants of the Black Mountain had soon enough 
to do to defend themselves. In 1623 Soliman, Pasha 
of Skodra, with 80,000 men, marched into the country 
with the intention of finally annexing it. For twenty 
days the opposing forces were engaged in almost 
ceaseless conflicts. But the invaders at last drove 
their enemies back upon Cetinje. The capital was 
taken, and the monastery of Ivan the Black sacked. 
A tribute was again imposed upon those who sub- 
mitted, while the bolder spirits retired to the inacces- 
sible heights of the Lovcen, and thence descended 
upon the Turkish camp. But nature was once more 
on the side of the mountaineers. The Pasha realised 
the truth of the saying that in Montenegro " a small 
army is beaten, a large one dies of hunger." The 
bare rocks afforded no subsistence to his host ; so, 
leaving a small army of occupation behind, he returned 
to the fertile plains of Albania. At once the Monte- 
negrin eagles swooped down from their eyrie upon 
the Turkish garrisons, while the warlike tribes of the 
Koutchi and Klementi on the Albanian border fell 
upon the main body near Podgorica and almost 
annihilated it. Montenegro was once more free. 
Had the Albanians of the frontier finally thrown in 



390 THE ELECTIVE VLADIKAS. 

their lot with their fellow-Christians in Montenegro, 
the combination would have .been irresistible. But 
the unfortunate division between the Eastern and the 
Western Church prevented their union. The Koutchi 
and Klementi had adopted the Roman Catholic faith 
at the instigation of Italian missionaries, while the 
Montenegrins have always been devoted to the 
Greek Church. The effects of this schism have been 
lasting. Montenegro looked calmly on while the 
Turks attacked its Catholic neighbours, while the 
Catholic Albanians usually allowed the Mussulman 
armies to enter Montenegro with impunity. It was 
only on rare occasions -that the instinct of self-pre- 
servation prompted the Albanian chiefs to combine 
with the warriors of the Greek Church for mutual 
protection. 

For over sixty years no serious attempt was made 
to conquer the country. But in 1687, the- Venetians 
urged their old allies to assist in a campaign against 
the Turks, whose power had just received a severe 
shock at the hands of Sobieski under the walls of 
Vienna. Forgetful of the selfishness of Venice, and 
eager to come to blows with their hereditary foes, the 
Montenegrins consented ; and, aided by the firearms, 
which now for the first time became general among 
them, soon dislodged the Turks, who had landed on 
the shores of the Bocche di Cattaro. But in the fol- 
lowing year Venice made peace with the Sultan, who 
now turned his undivided attention to Montenegro. 
In vain the Vladika Vissarion reminded the Republic 
that it was for her sake that he had incurred the 
enmity of the Turks. Not only was he left to his 



WAR WITH THE TURKS. ■ 39 1 

fate, but a Venetian officer, who commanded part of 
his army, was recalled at a critical moment. Deserted 
by their allies, the Montenegrins were taken at a 
disadvantage. Cetinje was once more destroyed, 
and the monastery of Ivan the Black, with all its 
precious books and relics, was blown up by the 
monks, who preferred death to surrender. The loss 
was irreparable ; and, though Cetinje was speedily 
rebuilt, the convent lay long in ruins. But the 
destruction of the capital did not mean the capture 
of the country. Unable to dislodge the Montenegrins 
from a strong position which they had occupied, 
the Turkish commander withdrew, leaving a small 
garrison at Obod. In spite of the bitter experience 
which they had had of alliances with the great 
European Powers, the mountaineers promised to 
assist the Emperor Leopold I. next year in his 
campaign against the Turks in Servia and Bosnia. 
As usual, they were ignored at the peace by their 
allies. Indeed, the Venetians are accused of having 
poisoned the Vladika Vissarion in order to please 
the Sultan. But the man was at hand to save the 
liberties of the Black Mountain. Sava, who suc- 
ceeded Vissarion, found the Turks too much occupied 
with the war on the Lower Danube to disturb his 
brief reign ; and by the time that they were once 
more at liberty to attack Montenegro, Danilo, first 
hereditary Vladika of the House of Petrovic, was 
ready to defend it. 



IV. 



THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 



(1696 — 1782.) 



THE modern history of Montenegro may be said to 
have begun on the 29th of July, 1696, with the accession 
of the present dynasty to the throne. For a period 
of one hundred and eighty years the destinies of 
the Black Mountain had been entrusted to the hands 
of an elective Prince-Bishop, or Vladika, who was 
assisted in temporal matters by a civil governor, But 
in their constant struggles against the Turks, the 
mountaineers had learnt by experience the disad- 
vantages which inevitably attend an election to the 
Crown. They felt that, if they were to hold their 
own, they must strengthen the position of their ruler 
by making his office hereditary in one powerful family. 
As the Prince-Bishop, by virtue of his episcopal 
station, was forbidden to marry, the Montenegrin 
ruler had no sons to succeed him. But, in order to 
secure continuity of government, the Vladika was 
empowered to nominate his successor from his rela- 
tives, and the people have never hesitated to ratify 

392 



DAN1L0 I. 393 

his choice. From 1696 onwards, nephew has suc- 
ceeded uncle in unbroken line. But the separation 
of the temporal from the ecclesiastical functions of 
the sovereign by Danilo II. in 185 1 has altered the 
character of the Montenegrin monarchy by permitting 
the Prince to marry ; and, though Danilo II. was 
followed by his nephew, in future the dignity may 
be expected to descend from father to son. 

Having resolved upon this change in their form of 
government, the Montenegrins had little doubt whom 
to choose as the founder of the new dynasty. Every 
visitor to Cetinje has passed through the village of 
Njegus, which lies about half-way between Cattaro 
and the Montenegrin capital. In the distance the 
cold grey houses of the hamlet look like a heap of 
stones, hardly distinguishable from the gaunt lime- 
stone rocks which surround it. But no spot in his 
mountain country is dearer to the Prince than this 
unpretentious hamlet, for it was the cradle of his 
race, the impregnable stronghold of Montenegrin 
independence. The village derives its name from 
a mountain in the Herzegovina, whose inhabitants 
had fled for refuge from the Turks to Montenegro 
a couple of centuries before, and had called their 
new settlement after their old home. One of the 
descendants of these Herzegovinian exiles, Danilo 
Petrovic, was a leading man at Njegus two hundred 
years ago, and it was upon him that the choice of 
the people fell. For a long time he declined the 
proffered honour. He pleaded youth, inexperience, 
and lack of ambition. He preferred the cloister at 
Cetinje to the leadership of the nation. But, at last, 



39-| THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

he yielded to the necessities of his country, and 
though he was not actually consecrated as Vladika 
till 1700, his accession dates from the 29th of 
July, 1696. The date will ever be memorable in 
Montenegro's rough mountain story. This summer 
Prince Nicholas celebrates the bicentenary of his 
dynasty by a national festival, or, to use his own 
phrase, a " rejoicing of his people." Prizes will be 
awarded for the best history of his family, and a 
monument is to be erected to the first of its princes. 
The long reign of Danilo I. was remarkable for 
numerous invasions of the Turks, especially during 
the first few years, and for the first connection between 
the Principality and the Czar of Russia — a connec- 
tion which has lasted down to the present day. The 
ruler found upon his accession that he would have 
not only to defend his country against the enemy 
from without, but also to free it from traitors within. 
Whenever the Turks had invaded the Black Moun- 
tain, they had derived great assistance from the 
Montenegrin subjects who had embraced the Mussul- 
man faith, just as in our own generation the Bosnian 
converts to Islam have sometimes been more Turkish 
in their sympathies than the Turks themselves. 
Danilo soon had an opportunity of ridding himself 
of this internal danger, and at the same time of 
striking a heavy blow at his external foes. We will 
tell the tale in the words of one of those beautiful 
piesmas, or national ballads, in which much of 
Montenegrin history is enshrined. This song, called 
Sve-Oslobod, or "Wholly Free," is still sung by the 
Martinovic family, and thus graphically describes the 



THE " MONTENEGRIN VESPERS." 395 

treachery of the Turks, the Vladika's sufferings, and 
his people's vengeance : — 

" The Christians of the Zeta, by means of gifts, 
gained permission from the Pasha of bloody Scutari 
to build a church. The humble building was com- 
pleted, and the priest Jove went to the chieftains of 
the tribes assembled in council and said to them : 
' Our church is built, but it will be no place of God 
until it has been consecrated : let us therefore give 
money to the Pasha for a safe-conduct for the Bishop 
of the Black Mountain, that he may come and bless 
it' The Pasha granted the pass for the Black Monk 
[the Turkish name for the Vladika, derived from his 
monkish garb], and the chosen men of the Zeta went 
in haste to give it to the Vladika at Cetinje. Danilo 
Petrovic read the writing and shook his head, and 
said : ' There is no promise held sacred by the Turks ; 
but for the love of our holy faith I will go, even if I 
never return.' So he bade saddle his best horse and 
went with them. But the treacherous Mussulman 
waited till he had blessed the church, and then seized 
him and dragged him, with his hands tied behind his 
back, to Podgorica. At this news, all the men of the 
Zeta, plain and mountain alike, rose and went to 
accursed Scutari to implore the Pasha to let the 
Vladika go. But he fixed the ransom at three 
thousand golden ducats. So the people of the Black 
Mountain agreed with the tribes of the Zeta, and sold 
perforce all the holy vessels at Cetinje. The Vladika 
was set free ; and when they saw the glorious sun- 
shine of their nation returning, the mountaineers 
could not restrain their transports of joy. But Danilo, 



396 THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

long afflicted by the spiritual successes of the Turks 
in his land and foreseeing the apostasy of his people 
from the faith, bade the assembled tribes at once fix 
a day for the massacre of every Turk throughout the 
country. At this demand, most of the leaders were 
silent ; the five brothers Martinovic alone offered to 
carry out the plot. Christmas Eve was chosen as the 
night of the massacre, in memory of. the victims 
who fell at Kossovo. The fatal evening arrived : the 
brothers Martinovic lighted their holy tapers, prayed 
with fervour to the new-born God, drank each a cup 
of wine to the glory of Christ, and, seizing their 
consecrated clubs, rushed off through the darkness. 
Wherever a Turk was to be found, the five avengers 
appeared ; all who refused baptism were massacred 
without pity ; those who embraced the cross were 
presented as brothers to the Vladika. The people, 
assembled at Cetinje, greeted the dawn of Christmas 
with songs of gladness ; for the first time since the 
fatal day of Kossovo, they could cry : ' The Black 
Mountain is free ! ' " 

These " Montenegrin Vespers," as the massacre of 
Christmas Eve, 1703, has been called, cleared the land 
of the Turkish renegades for some time to come. 
But in 1707 the survivors returned to the attack. 
The mountaineers not only inflicted upon them an 
overwhelming defeat, but showed their contempt by 
demanding a pig as the ransom for every prisoner. 
Upon this curious incident an eminent British states- 
man once based an elaborate defence of the Monte- 
negrins against the charge of cruelty. But the nation 
gained something more important than a herd of 



FIRST CONNECTION WITH RUSSIA. 297 

swine by this decisive victory. The inhabitants of 
the seven " mountains," or Berda, which now form 
the eastern portion of the principality, chose that 
moment for concluding a defensive alliance with the 
victors, with whom they were formally incorporated 
eighty years later. In memory of their former inde- 
pendence, the full title of the sovereign is still " Prince 
and Lord of Montenegro and the Berda " (kniaz i 
gospodar slobodne Crnegoi'e i Brdack). 

Scarcely less productive of results was the first 
appearance of Russia in Montenegrin history. In 
1 710 Peter the Great, involved in war with the Turks, 
sought to raise the Christians of the Balkan Peninsula 
against them. Following the advice of a Herze- 
govinian noble, he included the Montenegrins in his 
appeal. One of the national ballads describes the 
enthusiasm with which the Czar's emissary, Milo 
Radovic, was received at Cetinje. The Emperor's 
letter, we are told, began with an account of his 
victories over the Swedes, " Pultava's day," and the 
treason and death of Mazeppa, and went on to say 
how, in revenge, the Swedish monarch had urged on 
the Turks against him. "But," so runs the letter, " I 
place my trust above all in the stalwart arms of the 
Montenegrin braves, who assuredly will help me to 
deliver Christendom, to raise up temples of the 
true faith and to add splendour to the Slav name. 
Warriors of the Black Mountain, you are of the same 
creed, the same language as ourselves ; like us, you 
know no fear. Arise then, heroes worthy of the 
brave days of old, and remain a nation, which has 
no peace with the Turks." At these words the 



39 J THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

excitement was intense. Every warrior demanded to 
be led at once against the foe. But this enthusiasm 
was short-lived. The Czar quickly made peace, with- 
.out taking thought for his plucky allies, who were 
now abandoned to the vengeance of the Turks. But 
the courage of the Montenegrins did not desert them. 
At that time, the whole population of the country 
did not exceed twenty thousand persons, and as 
Achmet Pasha was despatched with fifty thousand 
soldiers against them, the odds seemed enormous. 
From the plain of Podgorica the Pasha wrote to 
Danilo : " Send me a small tribute and three braves 
as hostages. If thou dost not obey, I will set the 
whole land ablaze from the river Moraca to the salt 
lake [the Adriatic] ; I will take thee alive and torture 
thee to death." The assembled chiefs replied that 
the fire from their guns would be their only tribute. 
Three warriors were sent to spy out the enemies' 
camp, and the Vladika, falling upon the Turks as 
they slept, defeated them with tremendous slaughter. 
According to the legend, only three hundred Monte- 
negrins fell, while twenty thousand Mussulmans re- 
mained* dead on the rocks. The victory was the 
greatest that the Montenegrin arms had won. The 
date, by a curious coincidence the anniversary of 
Danilo's accession, is still remembered in the Black 
Mountain, and the " glorious 29th of July " has thus 
a double significance for the nation. The battlefield 
is known to this day as the " felling of the Emperor," 
or Tsarevlaz, because the Sultan's soldiers were 
cut down like trees. But all danger was not over. 
Kiuprili, the Governor of Bosnia, collected an army 



THE TURKS AT CETINJE. 399 

of one hundred and twenty thousand men on the 
Herzegovinian frontier, and, resolving not to rely on 
numbers alone, managed, under pretext of negotia- 
tions, to obtain possession of thirty-seven Montenegrin 
chiefs. Kiuprili hung his prisoners, and, having thus 
deprived Montenegro of its ablest leaders, invaded 
their helpless country. Once again the Turks 
occupied Cetinje, and once again its monastery, re- 
built by Danilo after the " Montenegrin Vespers," was 
razed to the ground. " Not a single altar," says a 
ballad, " not a single house in all Crnagora was left 
standing. The young men fled to the mountain fast- 
nesses, the others took refuge on Venetian territory, 
convinced that the Doge, to whom their long war 
had been so useful, would not surrender them to 
the Turks. In vain ! The Venetians allowed the 
Mussulmans to invade their land and put the 
vanquished to the sword." But the Montenegrins 
bore no malice against the Doge for his desertion. 
When the Venetians were blockaded by the Turks 
in the ports of Dulcigno and Antivari they came to 
their assistance, and a letter of thanks from the proud 
" Queen of the Adriatic " was sent to the Vladika, 
whose authority in ecclesiastical matters over the 
orthodox population of the Bocche di Cattaro was 
recognised by the Republic. Peter the Great showed 
his gratitude to his former allies in a more practical 
way. The year 171 5 is remarkable as the first occa- 
sion when a Montenegrin ruler visited Russia to seek 
aid or counsel of its Czar — a journey which every 
subsequent prince has undertaken. Peter the Great 
issued two ukases, in which he assured the mountain- 



4-00 THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

folk of his friendship, and sent them ten thousand 
roubles as well as one hundred and sixty gold pieces. 
This was the first of many subsidies which Monte- 
negro has received from the Czars. 

The Turks, meanwhile, had found it impossible to 
hold the barren mountains against the guerilla war- 
fare of this indomitable people. Another invasion 
was less successful ; the three Turkish commanders 
were captured and executed, while seventy Turkish 
prisoners were sacrificed to the manes of the Monte- 
negrin envoys butchered by Kiuprili. Besides, the 
Turks had now quite enough to do to defend their 
own possessions against Prince Eugene. During the 
next twenty years, Montenegro was only thrice 
invaded, and thrice were the ranks of Islam beaten 
back. One of these battles is said to have lasted for 
seven days ; in another a thousand mountaineers put 
twenty times their number to flight. But Montenegro 
had suffered much from this long series of wars. 
Danilo had, indeed, recovered the district of the Zeta 
and again restored the monastery at Cetinje. But the 
losses of the nation may be estimated from the fact 
that ohe of the largest tribes had been reduced to 
forty men. Montenegro had, however, attracted the 
attention and won the respect of Christendom by its 
bravery, and when Danilo I. died in 1735 at a ripe 
old age, he left to his nephew, Sava, a small but 
honourable inheritance. 

Sava, who had performed the ecclesiastical func- 
tions of the late Vladika for many years past, was 
suited by nature for the cloister rather than the 
throne. He is the only one of the seven Petrovic 



SAVA AND V ASS I LI. \0\ 

Princes who has lacked character, and a large part of 
his reign was really a regency, carried on by his 
nephew Vassili. But his government, if not remark- 
able for its vigour, is still remembered for the closer 
connection with Russia which he and his nephew 
promoted, and for the strange episode of Stephen the 
Little, one of the most successful impostures in all 
history. 

Weak as was the new ruler, he soon had to exert 
himself to defend his country from the Turks. The 
Peace of Belgrade had left them free to devote their 
undivided attention to Montenegro, and no sooner 
had it been concluded than they blockaded the Black 
Mountain. Without either allies or ammunition — for 
the faithless Venetians had forbidden . the traders of 
Cattaro to sell them arms — the beleaguered warriors 
were forced to trust to their own exertions and to 
the weapons which they captured from their enemies' 
camp. Their triumph was, however, disgraced by a 
horrible act of revenge. Seventy Turkish officers 
were shut up in a stable and then burnt alive. Their 
repulse of the next invasion was a more legitimate 
source of satisfaction to the mountaineers. " The 
vizier of Bosnia," in the language of the ballad, 
"wrote a letter to the Black Monk, Vassili Petrovic, 
saying, ' Black Monk, send me the tribute of the 
mountain with twelve of thy loveliest maidens, all 
between twelve and fifteen years, or I swear by the 
only true God to ravage the country and carry off 
every male, young and old, into slavery.' " Then the 
Vladika replied as follows : " Renegade, eater of the 
plums of the Herzegovina, how durst thou ask tribute 

2 7 , 



402 THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

of the children of the free Mountain ? Tribute we 
will send thee, but it shall be a stone of our rocks," 
and instead of a dozen virgins, thou shalt have a 
dozen pigs' tails for thy turban. If thou wilt attack 
us, come. We trust thou wilt leave thy head with us, 
and that it will roll down our mountain slopes, already 
strewn with many a Turkish skull." Infuriated at 
this reply, the Pasha sent his lieutenant with forty- 
five thousand men against his scornful foes. For 
fourteen days the two armies kept up a constant 
fusillade ; then, from lack of ammunition, the Monte- 
negrins had to retire. But an unexpected succour 
was at hand. Braving the displeasure of the Vene- 
tians, a Serb of Cattaro came and sold them in one 
night many thousands of cartridges. " Like wolves 
upon a flock of sheep they fell upon the Turkish 
camp, and pursued the enemy till nightfall over hill 
and valley." Till the close of Vassili's reign, in 1766, 
no Turkish soldier set foot again on the rocks of 
Montenegro. 

Meanwhile its rulers had both re-opened relations 
with Russia. Before he retired into the new monastery 
which he had built at Stanievic, and resigned all 
power into the hands of Vassili, Sava visited the 
Empress Elizabeth at Moscow, paying his respects 
on his return to Frederick the Great at Berlin. The 
Empress received him graciously, and, in pursuance 
of an unfulfilled promise of Peter the Great, allowed 
his country a sum of three thousand roubles a year 
as compensation for the losses which it had incurred 
during the war of 171 1. Vassili, in his turn, was 
made equally welcome. The Empress gave him one 



STEPHEN THE LITTLE. 403 

thousand ducats for his schools, which had fallen into 
disuse during the Turkish raids, and, in order to assist 
him in improving his military organisation, admitted 
fifteen young Montenegrins to the Military Academy 
at St. Petersburg. During a third journey to Russia, 
Vassili died on the ioth of March, 1766, and his remains 
lie in the church of St. Alexander Nevski at St. Peters- 
burg. Sava, unfitted for the work of government by 
nearly twenty years of monastic seclusion, was com- 
pelled to reassume the reins of power. But he had 
been little more than a year in office, when a pre- 
tender appeared in Montenegro and relieved him of 
his duties. There is no more curious episode in 
Balkan history than the successful imposture of this 
man. 

Towards the end of 1767 there arrived in the 
Bocche di Cattaro a certain Stephen the Little, or 
Stepan Mali, who gave himself out to be the Czar 
Peter III. of Russia, believed to have been murdered 
five years earlier. The impostor acted his part well ; 
under the guise of a doctor, he had paid a previous 
visit to the Black Mountain, studied carefully the 
customs of its inhabitants, and convinced himself of 
their attachment to Russia. Few of them had ever 
been in that country, fewer still had ever seen the 
features of the murdered Czar. Marco Tancovic, one 
of the small number of travelled Montenegrins, de- 
clared that in the face of Stephen he recognised the 
Emperor, whom he had met with Vassili at St. 
Petersburg. The simple people were greatly in- 
fluenced by what Tancovic said. From far and near 
the chiefs gathered together to see and hear him, and 



404 THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-BISHOPS. 

for the moment the dissensions, which had divided 
them under the feeble sway of Sava, were healed. 
Stephen told them the story of his life. He said that 
he had escaped from the daggers of his assassins, and 
after a long voyage had landed on the eastern shores 
of the Adriatic. He disclaimed all desire to return to 
Russia, and said that he asked nothing better than to 
devote the rest of his days to the cause of Monte- 
negrin independence. The people heard him gladly, 
thinking that the times demanded a man and not 
a monk as their ruler ; the Serb Patriarch of Ipek, 
who had delegated to Sava the spiritual jurisdiction 
hitherto enjoyed by himself and his predecessors, 
implored his protection from the Turks ; even the 
Serbs inhabiting the picturesque Venetian town of 
Risano on the Bocche di Cattaro rose in favour of 
the impostor. Sava was too weak to resist, and 
was allowed to live on condition that the usurper 
governed. Whatever his origin, Stephen, at any rate, 
governed well. He punished crime with the utmost 
severity ; he dared to have two of his subjects shot 
for theft, and such was the fear which he inspired, 
that no one ventured to touch a purse and a silver- 
mounted pistol which he left on the frequented road 
between Cattaro and Cetinje for several weeks. He 
established courts of justice, prohibited work on 
Sunday, ordered a census of all men fit to bear arms, 
and anticipated the present Prince in his desire to 
improve the means of communication. But his 
energy excited the suspicions of his great neighbours. 
Venice was alarmed for the safety of her Dalmatian 
possessions 5 the Turks regarded the usurper as a 



DEFEAT OF THE TURKS. \Q>1 

Russian agent in disguise. Both declared war against 
Montenegro. The Venetians encamped near Budua, 
now the southernmost Austrian outpost in Dalmatia ; 
the Turkish troops, following their usual tactics, 
attacked Montenegro on three sides at once. The 
position was critical, all the more so as Stephen 
showed no desire for fighting, and is even said to 
have sought safety in flight — a piece of cowardice 
unheard of in a genuine Montenegrin Vladika. But 
the elements were once more on the side of the 
mountaineers. After a nine months' struggle, on the 
1st of November, says the ballad, a heavy storm of 
rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, fell upon 
the Venetian and the Turkish camps. Next day, the 
Montenegrins descended and seized the ammunition 
of their enemies, who fled in terror. The piety of the 
people saw in this deliverance the hand of Providence, 
and the bard calls upon his " dear poSratim" or 
brother-in-arms, to " believe in the God from whom 
the men of Crnagora receive joy, courage, and 
health." The Russian Gov inment, which had 
hitherto taken no notice of the pretended Emperor, 
now sent Prince Dolgorouki to Montenegro with 
presents and war material in large quantities. 
Arrived at Cetinje, the Russian envoy assembled 
the people and read aloud to them two letters of the 
Empress Catharine II., in the first of which- she 
invited them to join her in war against the Turks, 
while in the other she denounced Stephen as an 
impostor, and demanded that he should be deposed. 
Stephen, confronted with his accuser, admitted the 
fraud which he had committed. In spite of the 






4-06 THE FIRST THREE HEREDITARY PRINCE-EISHOPS. 

entreaties of some of his subjects, who admired his 
administrative qualities, he was put under arrest, and 
had it not been for the incapacity of Sava, who was 
now once more called to the direction of affairs, his 
career would -have been over. But war was impend- 
ing, the winter was at hand, and as Sava still lingered 
in his monastic retreat, Prince Dolgorouki resolved 
upon the bold step of recognising his prisoner as 
Regent and installing him in office. Another and 
less probable account of Stephen's restoration to 
power is that he was rescued from prison by the 
people, whom he had convinced of his Imperial birth 
by the fact that he was lodged in a room above the 
Russian envoy. For five more years he governed 
Montenegro, and even the loss of one eye from an 
explosion during the blasting of a new road did not 
lessen his activity. Borne about his rocky principality 
on a litter, a gift from the rich citizens of Ragusa, he 
reigned till 1774, when a Greek servant, said to have 
been suborned by the Pasha of Scutari, strangled him 
while he was asleep. By a curious irony of fate, he 
died like the Emperor whose name he had assumed. 
Prince Dolgorouki states in his " Memoirs " that he 
came from Bosnia, and that the Archimandrite 
Marcovic suggested to him the part which he played 
so successfully. Other writers believe him to have 
been born in Dalmatia. But upon his abilities as a 
ruler all are agreed, and Montenegro owes a debt of 
gratitude to his memory. 

Upon his murder, the Pasha of Scutari at once 
took the field against the Montenegrins. But, "though 
the feeble Sava was now their leader, the valour of 



DEATH OF SAFA. 



407 



his subjects repulsed the Turks with great loss. The 
victories of Russia had crippled the Ottoman power, 
and though the victors, as in 171 1, did not take the 
trouble to have their Montenegrin allies included in 
the treaty of peace, the rest of Sava's reign was free 
from disturbance. In 1782 he died, after forty-seven 
years of titular rule, and Vassili's nephew, Peter 
Petrovic, who had held his dying uncle in his arms 
at St. Petersburg, reigned in his stead. 





V. 



PETER I. — THE BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK 
MOUNTAIN. 



(1782— 18 3 0.) 



Peter I. was a man of very different stamp from 
his predecessor. Energetic and able, bold in war and 
persuasive in the council-chamber, he was the first 
Montenegrin ruler who made Europe recognise the 
growing importance of his small mountain state. 
Austria, Russia and England did not scorn to accept, 
and even to solicit, his aid. His rude, untrained forces 
held the armies of the great Napoleon in check, and 
he resembled the French Emperor in the efforts 
which he made to organise his country, to codify its 
laws and to ensure their enforcement. 

He had scarcely returned from the ceremony of 
consecration at the hands of the Serb Patriarch, who 
now resided at Carlovitz, when he was compelled to 
face a Turkish invasion. Kara Mahmoud, Pasha of 
Scutari, and a descendant of the renegade Montene- 
grin Prince Stanicha, was ravaging the Black Moun- 
tain, and set fire to the monastery at Cetinje, as his 

408 



AUSTRIA AND MONTENEGRO. 409 

predecessors had done. The crafty Venetians, instead 
of supporting the Vladika, were supplying his enemies 
with provisions ; Potemkin, the favourite minister of 
Catherine II. of Russia, not only refused him assist- 
ance, but ordered him to quit St. Petersburg within 
twenty-four hours. But, when Austria and Russia 
declared war against Turkey in 1788, they were 
anxious to use Montenegro as a catspaw. Austria 
was particularly desirous of a Montenegrin alliance, 
and offered in return to increase the area of the 
principality beyond even its present limits. But 
even the tempting offer of the Herzegovina, which is 
still the " Naboth's vineyard " of Montenegro, did not 
gain the active support of the Vladika, until Russia 
had added her request to that of Austria. Meanwhile 
the latter power, thinking that the redoubtable Kara 
Mahmoud might be induced to revolt against the 
Sultan, had sent an envoy to Scutari to treat with 
him. The treacherous Pasha received the Austrians 
well, but the escort, which he had sent with them, 
murdered them on their way back by his orders. 
The sole survivor of this massacre entreated the 
Vladika to summon the nation to arms, and his 
entreaties, seconded by those of Russia, prevailed. 
But Montenegro had to fight, as usual, single-handed ; 
the Austrian soldiers contented themselves with 
looking on from the top of Mount Lovcen ; and 
as soon as her great allies chose to make peace with 
the Turks, Montenegro was worse than forgotten. 
She was, indeed, mentioned in the Treaty of Sistova 
but only as one of the revolted Turkish provinces! 
Such a proceeding was to add insult to injury. But 



4-10 PETER L — BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 



the war had incidentally contributed to the consolida- 
tion of the principality. The people of Trebinje in 
the Herzegovina, long noted for their independence 
and intolerance of Turkish rule, had been driven from 
their homes by the ravages of the Turks, and sought 
shelter among the Berda. The four nahie of that 
mountainous district, which had been virtually united 
to Montenegro under Danilo I., were now formally 
combined with it into one state, and the eight nahie 
thus formed continued to compose the principality 
down to the year 1835, when the Koutchi voluntarily 
joined it. This important accession of territory did 
not fail to arouse the jealousy of the Turks. Kara 
Mahmoud resolved to prevent the union, and entered 
Montenegro at the point where the river Zeta separates 
it from the Berda. But his efforts were in vain. After 
a sanguinary engagement near the fortress of Spuz, 
the Pasha retired wounded from the field, and a sub- 
sequent expedition cost him his life. The Vladika, 
posting one half of his forces in one of those moun- 
tainous defiles which are so common in his country, 
and leaving a number of red Montenegrin caps upon- 
the rocks to delude the Turks into the idea that his 
whole army was in front, surprised them with the 
other half in the rear. Taken unawares between 
the two fires, the invaders fell by hundreds ; Kara 
Mahmoud was slain, and when Sir Gardner Wilkin- 
son visited Cetinje, fifty years later, he found the 
Pasha's skull still stuck, as a grim trophy of victory, 
on the battlements of the famous " Turks' Tower." 
The effects of the Turkish defeat were lasting ; the 
union of the Montenegro and the Berda was secure ; 



TREATY OF CAMPO FORM 10. 



411 



the hereditary foes of the Black Mountain ceased for 
many years from troubling, and the pious mountaineers 
applied to the battle of Kroussa the verse of the Book 
of Judges which tells how Midian was subdued before 
the children of Israel. The Sultan no longer demanded 
tribute from a nation which knew so well how to 
defend itself. By a curious coincidence, the victory 




the " Turks' tower," cetinje, 
in 1848. 

took place exactly one hundred years after the selec- 
tion of Danilo I. as Prince-Bishop. 

But with the ensuing year (1797) Montenegro was 
brought into close contact with even a more formid- 
able neighbour than the Turks. It would be difficult 
to over-estimate the influence of the Treaty of Campo 



41 2 PETER I. — BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

Formio upon the fortunes of the mountain-state, for 
its effects are felt at the present day. That memor- 
able arrangement assigned the Dalmatian possessions 
of Venice to Austria, and thus made the boundary of 
Montenegro conterminous with that of the Hapsburgs. 
The inhabitants of Cattaro, who had long enjoyed 
the protection of the Venetian Republic, sought the 
advice of the Vladika in their dilemma. They re- 
minded him that when Venice had undertaken to 
protect them, it was under the express promise that 
they should recover their independence if ever the 
Republic failed to fulfil her undertaking. The people 
of Budua also implored the presence of Peter ; in 
fact, from that moment, the Serbs of the coast came 
to regard him as their natural head. Even the chiefs 
of the Herzegovina begged him, as their descendants 
begged the present Prince, to deliver them from the 
Turkish yoke. The Vladika, with diplomatic tact, 
advised the citizens of Cattaro to await the course of 
events. If the power of Venice were restored, they 
could once more place themselves under the sheltering 
wings of the Lion of St. Mark ; if not, they could 
come to terms with Austria. Meanwhile, an Austrian 
army was occupying the Dalmatian towns, and Baron 
Roukavina, the Austrian admiral, wrote to Peter, 
asking him to use his influence with the people of 
the Bocche on behalf of the Power which had assisted 
him with ammunition in his recent campaign. Peter 
appears to have adopted the policy of neutrality 
which was followed by Prince Nicholas during the 
insurrection at Cattaro in 1869, and the Bocchesi 
made preparations to submit to their new master. 



THE FRENCH AT CATTARO. 413 

But scarcely had they admitted the Austrian admiral 
to their magnificent harbours, when a French fleet 
arrived off Ragusa and ordered the Austrians to 
withdraw from the- Bocche. In his distress, the 
Austrian commander applied again to Peter, urging 
him to join against the common enemy, and even 
offering to serve under his command. The Czar 
seconded the request of his ally, and sent a special 
envoy to Montenegro to enlist the support of its ruler 
against Napoleon. But before the Vladika had taken 
the field, the peace of Pressburg formally consigned 
the Bocche to France. The Austrian commissioner 
at Cattaro announced that in six weeks' time he would 
hand over the forts. 

Great was the indignation of the seafaring popula- 
tion round that beautiful fiord at this second surrender 
of their liberties. A few welcomed Napoleon as a 
" father and a mother," but the vast majority resolved 
to resist. A deputation was sent to Cetinje, where 
the Russian envoy still was, to ask the aid of the 
Montenegrins by land and of the Russians by sea. 
The Russian fleet was summoned from Corfu, and the 
Vladika assembled his chieftains and vowed before 
them that he would not only close the Bocche to the 
French, but eject the Austrians as well. At the head 
of a combined force of Montenegrins and Bocchesi, 
and aided by a division of the Russian squadron, 
he laid siege to the fortress of Castelnuovo, at the 
entrance of the Bocche. The fortress surrendered at 
once, and having thus turned out the Austrians, Peter 
was able to devote his attention to the French. He 
sent an urgent message to the Senate of Ragusa, then 



414 PETER I. BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

an independent Republic, in order to prevent the 
French from crossing the Republican territory in 
their march upon Cattaro. But neither the repre- 
sentations of the Vladika nor the presence of the 
Russian admiral prevailed upon the timorous sena- 
tors. Fearing the wrath of the French Emperor, they 
opened their gates to his general, Lauriston, whose 
first act was to suppress their ancient liberties. 
But the Montenegrins were not so easily daunted 
by the name of Napoleon. Aided by the Bocchesi 
and their Russian allies, they defeated the French 
in a four days' engagement, and drove them 
back within the walls of Ragusa. The city was 
surrounded, and would inevitably have fallen 
into their hands had not orders arrived from the 
Czar that the Bocche should be surrendered to the 
Austrians. As usual, the brave mountaineers found 
that they had been duped. Disgusted at this treat- 
ment, the Vladika withdrew from the siege. But the 
guerilla warfare which followed was conducted with 
the utmost savagery by his subjects and the people 
of the coast. No quarter was shown on either side. 
The story that the Montenegrins played bowls with 
the heacls of the French soldiers and remarked how 
light-headed their enemies were, is probably an inven- 
tion. But there is no doubt that they decapitated the 
French general, Delgorgues, who had been made a 
prisoner. When Marshal Marmont reproached Peter 
with this horrible custom of his people, the Vladika 
replied that there was nothing surprising in it ; what 
did surprise him was that the French should have 
beheaded their lawful king, The Montenegrins, he 



NAPOLEON I. AND MONTENEGRO. 4 I 5 

added, might have learnt this barbarous practice from 
the French, with this difference, that the former only 
beheaded their oppressors, and not their prince or 
their fellow-countrymen. In the frequent skirmishes 
which took place, the French soldiers were no match 
for the mountain-bands, which harassed them on all 
sides. Lauriston, who meditated the occupation of 
Albania and the Herzegovina, tried to win over by 
promises the highland chief whom he could not 
crush by force. But Peter was not to be bought by 
the empty title of Patriarch of Dalmatia. He even 
warned his old enemies, the Turks, of the danger 
which threatened them. But when Turkey declared 
war against Russia at the end of 1806, he did not 
hesitate to accept the invitation of the Herzegovinian 
chieftains who sought his aid. But the attempt of 
the Montenegrins to seize the important fortress of 
Niksic failed. It was reserved for Prince Nicholas to 
capture it seventy years later. 

The peace of Tilsit in 1807 gave the Bocche to the 
French, and for the next six years they remained in 
almost undisputed possession of the coast. Their 
Emperor had learned by experience to consider the 
Montenegrins as dangerous neighbours, whom it was 
better to have as friends than foes. He accordingly 
lost no time in making overtures to their warlike 
ruler. Marmont sought an interview with Peter at 
the Fort of the Trinity above Cattaro, at which he 
made him an offer of his Emperor's protection. The 
Yladika coldly replied that that of the Czar was 
sufficient. But Napoleon did not despair of bringing 
this wild and independent mountain-folk under his 



416 PETER I. — BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

control. He sent Colonel Vialla de Sommieres, who 
was French Governor of Cattaro between 1807 and 
1 81 3, to visit their country, and promised to station 
a consul at Cetinje. De Sommieres published some 
years later an account of his journey, and his book 
was for many years the standard work on Mon- 
tenegro. But France gained no hold upon the people. 
Napoleon's offer to construct a road at his own 
expense across the principality was declined ; for 
the Montenegrins reflected that where carriages could 
come up, cannon could come up also. It had always 
been their settled policy to make access to their 
country difficult, and not to destroy the natural 
barriers of rock, to which, like the Swiss, they have 
owed their independence. "When God made the 
world, and was distributing stones over the earth " — 
so runs the quaint saying — " the bag that held them 
burst and let them all fall upon Montenegro." It 
is in these stones that the Black Mountain has found 
its best fortifications — for artificial forts it has none — 
and it was not till the time of the present Prince that 
the Napoleonic idea of making a road across the 
country was ever carried out. Even now it is not 
by any means certain that this improved means of 
communication will not be a source of danger in the 
future. Napoleon was furious at the rejection of his 
overtures, and vowed that he would lay waste the 
country with fire and sword, till its name became 
Monte Rosso instead of Montenegro, the Red Moun- 
tain instead of the Black. But his threat was never 
carried out. He took a mean revenge by depriving 
the Vladika of his spiritual jurisdiction over the 



THE CRY FOR CATTARO. 417 

Bocche di Cattaro, but it was not till 1813 that the 
war was resumed. 

The Serbs of Montenegro took no part in the 
Servian revolution under Kara George in the early 
years of the century. Peter, indeed, entered into 
relations with the liberator of Servia, but was unable 
to assist him. He composed, however, a spirited 
poem upon the valour and successes of " the brave 
brother Serbs " and their leader, whose aim it was 
to form an alliance with Montenegro and drive the 
Turks out of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. In ac- 
cordance with this plan, Peter sent a body of his 
subjects to co-operate with Kara George ; but, as no 
news arrived from the Servian camp, military opera- 
tions were soon suspended, and the famine, which 
prevailed throughout Montenegro in 18 10, made a 
second campaign impossible. 

When the news of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow 
became known in Dalmatia, the Montenegrins were 
not slow to avail themselves of the opportunity. It 
had always been the desire of Prince and people to 
obtain the beautiful harbour of Cattaro, which is the 
principal outlet of their export trade. Even now 
that they possess two seaports of their own at 
Dulcigno and Antivari, they regret the old Illyrian 
town, which in the fourteenth century belonged to 
the old Serb kingdom and was regarded as an 
appanage of the Montenegrin princes as late as the 
reign of Stephen Crnoievic. In 181 3, when the 
principality had no access to the sea, but was cut 
off from the coast like Servia to-day, the cry for " our 
old city of Cattaro " went up loud and long. A 



418 PETER I. — BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

British fleet, under Sir William Hoste, proved a 
valuable ally, and the Vladika bade Vouko Radonic, 
the civil governor, besiege the town, while he himself 
attacked Budua. Both operations were successful. 
The Serbs within the walls of Budua joyfully threw 
open the gates to their protector, and Peter, in the 
words of a ballad, " mounted on his big horse and 
light as a grey falcon, entered the town and offered • 
up thanks to God." Cattaro, ably defended by 
General Gauthier and the French garrison, held out 
for three months, till on the 27th of December, 181 3, 
it surrendered to the combined British and Mon- 
tenegrin forces. It was the first time that the name 
of England had been mentioned in the story of the 
Black Mountain. But it was not to be the last. 
Sixty-seven years later, the efforts of the British 
Government secured to the old allies of 181 3 the 
harbour of Dulcigno, and the good deed has not yet 
been forgotten in the humble cottages of the moun- 
taineers. They speak still with gratitude of England, 
and point with pride to the photographs of Mr. 
Gladstone which hang upon their walls. Were the 
aged statesman to visit Cetinje — so a Montenegrin 
once assured the writer — the whole nation would line 
the road from Cattaro in his honour. 

But that " hard-won haven " did not long remain 
the property of Montenegro. A joint meeting of 
Montenegrins and Bocchesi had indeed resolved upon 
the union of the Bocche di Cattaro to the adjoining 
principality. A solemn document was drawn up on 
the 29th of October, in the Serb and Italian languages, 
and signed by the Vladika and the civil governor, 



CATTAKO GIVEN UP. 419 

representing Montenegro and the Berda, and by the 
chiefs of the coast tribes. A central commission was 
appointed under the presidency of Peter, and com- 
posed of nine Montenegrins and nine Bocchesi, to 
carry on the present war against the French and 
secure the future government of the whole country. 
The union, thus auspiciously inaugurated, did not 
exist merely upon paper. For the capture of Castel- 
nuovo and Spagnuolo, as well as Cattaro, had placed 
the whole gulf at the power of the allies. Peter, 
desirous of the Czar's protection, despatched to 
Russia a trusty envoy, one of the famous Mon- 
tenegrin family of Plamenac, whose name, the " flame 
of fire," is emblematical of its warlike renown. 
But Russia was indifferent, and Austria, to whom 
the chiefs of the Bocchesi looked for aid, sought to 
regain her former Dalmatian possessions. While the 
Vladika was governing his united dominions in 
anxious expectation of the Czar's approval, Russia 
and Austria had concluded an agreement by which 
Cattaro and the coast were to be given up to the 
latter. On the 2nd of June, the coveted city, which 
was to have been the capital of a larger Montenegro, 
opened its gates to an Austrian general, and the 
Montenegrin day-dream was over, never to return. 
From that day, Cattaro has nestled beneath the wings 
of the Austrian double-eagle. The traveller cannot 
fail to notice the Venetian lions which still adorn 
the gateway and the ancient houses. But he will 
be chiefly struck by the frowning Austrian fortresses, 
which have been erected on every hill, and by the 
fleet of Austrian ironclads, which he will see lying 



420 PETER I. BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

at anchor in the Bay of Teodo. To Austria, the 
Bocche di Cattaro have been a valuable addition. 
From their shores she obtains the hardy seamen who 
man her ships ; in their waters she finds an anchorage, 
finer than that of Pola, for her men-of-war. But to 
Montenegro, the loss of the Bocche and the strip 
along the coast has been irreparable. To be within 
a cannon's-shot of the sea, and yet to be shut off 
from it by a narrow piece of foreign territory, is a 
grievance hard to bear. Peter I. felt it bitterly ; he 
retired from the unequal contest to his mountain- 
home. Russia and Austria had alike deceived 
him. No Montenegrin ballad narrates the story of 
his departure ; it was regarded as too sad a subject 
for song. But Ragusan writers have given us their 
version of the surrender of Cattaro. The authors 
were prejudiced against the man who had laid siege 
to their own city ; but they admit that the warriors 
of the Black Mountain did not evacuate Cattaro 
until they had fired their last cartridge. Even in 
their mountains, however, the protection of Russia 
was denied them. The annual subsidy which the 
principality had received since the days of the 
Empress Elizabeth, was stopped in 1814, and it 
was not till the accession of the Czar Nicholas I. in 
1825 that it was renewed. The Black Mountain was 
under a cloud. 

Peter had now time to devote to the internal 
organisation of his country. With the exception of the 
Turkish invasion of 1820, when the Pasha of Bosnia 
was defeated and committed suicide in disgust, the 
land had peace for sixteen years — an almost un- 



PETER ON HIS DEFENCE. 42 1 

exampled period of repose for its warlike inhabitants. 
The Montenegrins, indeed, continued to raid the 
adjacent parts of Albania and the Herzegovina, in 
quest of food and booty, but the Turkish Government 
was far too much occupied with the risings in Greece 
and the Danubian Principalities to organise a war 
of revenge. But the Montenegrins, demoralised by 
their constant struggle for existence, and reduced 
to the greatest extremities by famine, were chiefly 
engaged in quarrelling among themselves, and so 
small was the respect which some of the more unruly 
spirits showed for their ruler, that they accused him 
of neglecting his ecclesiastical duties. Their com- 
plaints reached the ears of the Czar, who despatched 
an envoy to inquire into the truth of the charge. 
Peter defended himself in a lengthy document, his 
accusers repented of the indignity which they had 
inflicted upon their sovereign, and an understanding 
was brought about by the good offices of the Russian 
Consul at Ragusa. The incident is interesting as 
showing the influence which Russia exerted over 
the Black Mountain at the beginning of the present 
century, and the lack of cohesion among the subjects 
of the Vladika. The Montenegrin chiefs still lived, 
each a law unto himself, and the blood-feud, the 
border-raid, and other primitive institutions still 
flourished unchecked. But Peter was fully aware 
of the need of a strong government. As early as 
1796 he had issued a new code of thirty-three 
articles, to which the chiefs swore to submit. Two 
years later, judges were appointed to decide disputes, 
and a general assembly of the people was sub- 



42 2 PETER I. — BONAPARTE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. 

sequently summoned, at which the Vladika ex- 
plained the meaning of the new enactments, and 
insisted upon their prompt execution. Until the Code 
Danilo replaced them in 1855, the laws of Peter I. 
continued in force. In 1821 a species of police, 
known under the Turkish name of Voulouk, was 
introduced all over the country, but even when 
criminals were brought to justice and tried, it was 
not always easy to carry out their sentences. The 
ruler was severe, but public opinion often saw no 
harm in acts which he regarded as offences. Even 
to-day the Montenegrin sees nothing wrong in a 
skirmish with the Albanians on the border, though 
a stranger in his own land is' sacred in his eyes. 
Still more difficult was the problem of feeding a 
population greatly disclined to labour, and unpro- 
vided with fertile fields. Famine has always been 
at once the scourge and the safety of the Black 
Mountain. The tiny patches of soil, a couple of 
yards square, scarcely visible among the masses of 
grey limestone which cover it, barely suffice for the 
needs of its inhabitants, and are wholly inadequate 
to support an army of occupation. Wholesale 
emigration to Servia and Russia was but a partial 
remedy, and Peter with all his energy could not 
prevent the frequent recurrence of famine. 

Full of years and distinctions, Peter I. was peace- 
fully sitting on the 18th of October, 1830, before 
the fire in the vast room which was alike the kitchen 
and the audience-chamber of this primitive sovereign. 
He was speaking to the assembled company upon the 
theme which had occupied the last years of his life 



PETERS DEATH. 423 

■ — the need of harmony between the different districts 
of his country. As he spoke, he felt a sudden faint- 
ness come on, and begged to be carried to the simple 
and poorly-furnished apartment where he was wont 
to sleep without so much as a fire to warm him. 
That same day he had dictated his will to his secre- 
tary, in which he enjoined union upon the chiefs, and 
begged them, as a token of respect to himself, to 
keep a truce of God till the festival of St. George 
in the ensuing year. As his successor, he nominated 
his nephew Radatamova, a lad of seventeen, who 
subsequently assumed the name and style of Peter 
II. The chiefs swore to obey the dying Vladikds 
behests, and with a prayer on his lips he peacefully 
expired. His body was laid in the chapel of the con- 
vent at Cetinje amid the lamentations of his subjects. 
When, four years afterwards, the coffin was opened 
the corpse was found intact. The people declared 
that a miracle had occurred, and the dead Prince- 
Bishop was canonised as a saint. St. Peter Petrovic 
is still the object of every pious Montenegrin's venera- 
tion, and to his open coffin at Cetinje come pilgrims 
from far and near. 



VI. 



PETER II. AND DANILO II. 



(183O— 1860.) 



On the day after Peter I.'s death, the chiefs in- 
vested his successor with the ecclesiastical garb — for 
he had not yet been dedicated to the ministry — 
placed a bishop's staff in his hand and presented him 
to his future subjects, who swore on the coffin of 
the dead Vladika to maintain peace and live like 
brethren one with another. But the new reign did 
not begin quite smoothly. A slight opposition was 
manifested to the succession of so young and inex- 
perienced a ruler, and Radatamova himself was by no 
means ambitious of the onerous distinction. He was 
fond of solitude, and his poetic nature disinclined him 
to the duties of government. But his scruples were 
soon overcome, and the adhesion of Vouko Radonic, 
the civil governor, and the Archimandrite of Ostrog 
to his side silenced his opponents. In the chapel of 
the Madonna on the little island of Kom, in the lake 
of Scutari, the new ruler was consecrated by the 
Bishop of Prisrend, whom the friendly Pasha of 



TURKISH OFFERS. 42$ 

Scutari had permitted to perform the ceremony. 
Three years later he showed his respect for the Czar 
by journeying to St. Petersburg, where his consecra- 
tion was confirmed and the dignity of a bishop, 
under the name of Peter II., was bestowed upon 
him. 

The Turks had ceased to trouble Montenegro since 
their great defeat in 1820, but the Pasha of Scutari, 
mindful of the fate which had befallen his father, 
Kara Mahmoud, earlier in the late reign, had con- 
tented himself with the independent position which 
he enjoyed without encroaching upon the liberties of 
of his neighbours. But in 1832 Albania was again 
reduced to subjection by the Sultan, and the old 
relations between the Turkish governors and the free 
mountaineers were resumed. But the Turks had not 
forgotten the bravery of the Montenegrin warriors- 
They resolved, before attempting to subdue the 
Black Mountain by force, to try the effect of diplo- 
matic overtures. Following the same policy which 
had been found successful in Servia, they offered to 
recognise the hereditary right of the Petrovic family 
to rule over Montenegro, which should receive an 
accession of territory, provided that Peter II. acknow- 
ledged the suzerainty of the Sultan. The offer, 
repeated in 1856, was indignantly refused. Peter 
reminded the Sultan that Montenegro had never 
owned allegiance to his predecessors, while Servia 
had been for centuries a Turkish province. " As 
long as my subjects defend me," he said, " I need no 
Turkish title to my throne ; if they desert me, such a 
title would avail me nothing. His people felt that this 



426 PET&R II. AND DANILO //. 

indeed was the voice of a true Montenegrin, and at 
nineteen their ruler could command their devotion to 
the death. Furious at this refusal, the Grand Vizier 
despatched an advanced guard of seven thousand 
men against the haughty bishop. So sudden was the 
invasion that the Turkish troops had reached Spuz 
before the Montenegrins knew of their approach. 
Had it not been for the bravery and the presence of 
mind of a village priest the invaders might have 
carried all before them. Near the narrow defile of 
Martinic, on the same spot where thirty-five years 
earlier Kara Mahmoud's forces had been routed, the 
combat took place. The ballad tells us how, in the 
evening, the wife of the village priest, Radonic by 
name, dreamed that she saw a dense cloud " coming 
from bloody Scutari and passing over Podgorica and 
Spuz. And she heard the thunder burst upon Mar- 
tinic with a long crash, and the dazzling lightning 
scorched her eyes and those of her eight sisters-in- 
law. But from the church upon the mountain-side 
there came a furious gust of wind, and then another 
from Joupina, and a third from Slatina, and all three 
united and drove back the dark clouds into the plain 
of Spuz. And she awoke and told her dream to her 
husband, and he arose and loaded his shining gun. 
And while it was yet dark, the Turks rushed, torches 
in hand, into the village. The priest Radonic fought 
at the head of his parishioners till bullet after bullet 
struck him and laid him dying on the ground. Then 
he called his two nephews to him and bade them carry 
off his body lest the Turks should cut off his head, 
and rouse the Montenegrin braves against the enemy 



BORbER WAR FARM. \2 ? 

So the alarm was given and help came." The new 
Pasha of Scutari fled to the gates of Spuz, and the tide 
of invasion was driven back. The Grand Vizier pre- 
pared to avenge the defeat of his lieutenant in person ; 
but the dangers which threatened the Turkish Empire 
from Ibrahim Pasha in Syria were so pressing that 
the expedition was postponed. Hostilities broke out 
again three years later, when a band of Montene- 
grins surprised the fortress of Spuz, then in the 
possession of the Turks, and the tribe of Koutchi, 
which had just joined the principality, seized Zabljak, 
the old Montenegrin capital. But Peter II., who had 
by that time acquired extraordinary authority over 
his subjects, ordered the evacuation of this place. A 
paean of triumph had risen from the Black Mountain 
at its capture, but the Vladika, with the true instinct 
of a statesman, judged that a good understanding 
with the Turks was worth more to his country than 
the possession of a town which was difficult to defend. 
His people reluctantly obeyed his commands; Zabljak 
was restored, and an " eternal " peace was concluded 
with the Turks. But border raids soon commenced 
between the tribes on either side. The two govern- 
ments, unable to stop this tribal warfare, agreed to 
close their eyes to the delinquencies of their respec- 
tive subjects. It is only quite recently that the 
shooting of a few Albanians or Montenegrins on the 
frontier has come to be regarded as an international 
incident, to be settled by special commissioners. But 
half a century ago fighting was the sole occupation 
of the mountaineers, and, rather than allow them to 
quarrel among themselves, Peter, however unwillingly, 



428 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

permitted them the luxury of an annual foray in the 
Turkish provinces. Herzegovina has always been the 
happy hunting-ground of Montenegrin freebooters, 
and under the direction of a Russian agent, Captain 
Kovalevski, their tactics were crowned with success. 
Victory after victory was won for two consecutive 
years, and in Albania, too, the Turkish towns were 
continually attacked. Podgorica in particular, to-day 
the Manchester of Montenegro, but then still in posses- 
sion of the Turks, was almost daily besieged, and the 
traveller is shown the famous bridge just outside the 
town where again and again the Moslem and the 
Montenegrin warriors fought hand to hand and foot 
to foot. On one occasion a body of Montenegrins 
gained access to the place in the guise of deserters, 
and nearly succeeded in blowing up the fortifications. 
Forty heads were the ghastly booty of another skir- 
mish, and, in spite of the express prohibition of the 
Vladika, twenty Turkish skulls were still bleaching 
on the " Turks' Tower " in 1 848. The Czar Nicholas 
I. felt compelled to expostulate with Peter upon the 
cruelty of his subjects, and disavowed the part which 
Kovalevski had taken in their raids. For the last 
ten yeafs of the reign, comparative tranquillity 
reigned on the Turkish frontiers, broken only by 
the capture of the Isle of Vranina in the lake of 
Scutari by the Albanians in time of peace. 

Montenegro had, however, begun to recognise 
that Austria was even a more dangerous enemy 
than the Turk. The Austrian occupation of the 
narrow strip of coast between Spica and Cattaro was 
then, no less than now, a great grief to the people of 



FIGHTING WITH AUSTRIA. 429 

the mountain behind it. One of the districts annexed 
along this coast-line was that inhabited by the Pastro- 
vic, a race of hardy sailors, who in the old Venetian 
days had acquired riches, honours, and independence. 
In the tiny island of St. Stephen, opposite Budua, they 
had founded their seat of government, where their 
twelve delegates met in council, and so highly was 
their assistance esteemed by the proud Republic of St. 
Mark, that her first families welcomed them as hus- 
bands for their daughters. But their fortunes had 
declined with those of their great ally, and at this 
time they had been reduced to sell their fertile pas- 
ture-lands to their Montenegrin neighbours. In order 
to put a stop to the frequent quarrels which ensued 
between the old and new proprietors, the new Austrian 
Government proposed to eject the Montenegrins, offer- 
ing them compensation for disturbance. Peter II. 
gave his consent to the proposal, but the spectacle of 
the Austrian boundary commissioners at work upon 
their land was more than the shepherds of the Black 
Mountain could bear. They flew to arms, and the 
engineers were forced to beat a hasty retreat. The 
news spread like wildfire, and on the morrow several 
thousand men were ready to march against the 
Schwabi, as they called their Austrian foes. For five 
days active hostilities continued. Repulsed by the 
disciplined soldiers of Austria, the assailants resorted 
to the device of putting a woman in the forefront of 
the battle. No Serb, they knew full well, would 
dare to fire a shot against an army thus protected. 
But their opponents had no such scruples. The 
woman fell, and the Montenegrins rushed in vain 



43° PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

against the serried ranks of the enemy. A general 
conflict followed. The children and the old men of 
the mountain hurled down rocks upon the heads of 
the Austrians below, the women brought food and 
ammunition to their champions in the fight. A 
native ballad commemorates the bravery of Lieu- 
tenant Rossbach, a veteran who had lost an eye 
at the battle of Aspern, and whom the Mon- 
tenegrin bard calls " the great one-eyed chief." 
The struggle between the " intrepid wolves " of 
Rossbach and the " sons of Ivo Crnoievic " would 
have gone on much longer, for the blood of the 
mountaineers was up, and many were the heads of 
their foes whom they had cut off " with the rapid 
movement of their sabres." But Peter intervened 
and forbade any of his subjects to continue the war, 
under pain of excommunication. The piety of this 
people prevailed over their angry feelings, and a truce 
was concluded in 1838, which was converted into a 
solemn treaty of peace two years later. Austria 
acquired, by private purchase from the Vladika, two 
of his monasteries, one of which, situated at Stanievic 
near Budua, had been a favourite residence of his 
predecessors and had been built by Sava a hundred 
years earlier. A formal delimitation of territory now 
took place, all moot points being referred to a Russian 
official. Peter erected a gibbet on the frontier in full 
view of Budua, as a warning to his freebooting sub- 
jects. But the gallows did not deter them from 
reprisals, and in 1842 hostilities were renewed and 
carried on in a desultory fashion. But there has been 
no regular warfare since then between Montenegro 



ABOLITION OF CIVIL GOVERNORSHIP. 43 1 

and her dreaded neighbour. Every Montenegrin 
suspects Austria, and in our own day the Erzfeind is 
more feared in the Black Mountain than that Erb- 
feind, the Turk. For they feel at Cetinje that the 
wave of Turkish invasion has spent its force, while 
that of Austrian occupation has been advancing 
steadily during the century since the Treaty of 
Campo Formio. 

Meanwhile, Peter had effected a most important 
reform in the internal government of his tiny state. 
Ever since 1516 the office of civil governor had 
existed without interruption, and had become heredi- 
tary in the family of Radonic, just as that of Vladika 
in the house of Petrovic. This system of dual con- 
trol had worked well on the whole, for the position of 
the governor had always been inferior to that of the 
Prince-Bishop, and in the last reign had sunk into 
comparative insignificance. But Vouko Radonic, 
who filled the office of gouvernadour at the accession 
of Peter II., was an ambitious man, who fancied he 
saw the opportunity of asserting his power. He 
supported the succession of Peter, thinking, no doubt, 
that with his sixty years' experience he could easily 
make a puppet of this lad of seventeen. But when 
the young Vladikds firmness of character became 
apparent, Radonic resolved to overthrow him. 
Following the usual plan of Balkan statesmen, he 
sought to make himself the agent of a great foreign 
power, and entered into communications with Austria. 
But his intrigues were discovered. Declared a traitor 
to his country, he was banished with all his family, 
his old home at Njegus was burnt to the ground, and 



43 2 PETER II. AND DA NIL O II. 

his place has from that day remained unfilled. From 
1832 there has been no civil governor of the Black 
Mountain— a change which would perhaps have been 
less easy to effect had not the hand of an assassin 
removed the younger and more popular brother of 
Vouko Radonic. The Austrian Government pen- 
sioned the family, and frowned upon the Vladika 
when he visited Vienna. 

In 1 83 1 a new element was introduced into the 
polity of the Black Mountain. It was Peter's aim to 
check the independent spirit of the chieftains, and 
control the authority which they exercised over their 
respective districts. With this object he founded a 
Senate, or Soviet, composed at first of himself as 
President, and twelve other members elected by the 
people. But the elective character of this body was 
soon reduced to a nullity. Danilo II., the next 
ruler, found that the senators were likely to form the 
nucleus of a strong opposition. He therefore took 
the precaution of nominating them himself, and in his 
capacity of President was able to influence their 
decisions. The Senate ceased to do anything except 
register the decrees of the sovereign, and Prince 
Nicholas," on his accession, was careful to make his 
father, and subsequently his cousin, President of this 
docile assembly. Moreover, the creation of a Ministry 
in 1873 has further diminished its importance, never 
very great in a country where the Prince is prac- 
tically absolute. But at first the Senate was entrusted 
with the double functions of a court of appeal and a 
legislative body. Its members were paid the modest 
salary of one hundred florins a year, and the simplicity 



THE MONTENEGRIN SENATE. 433 

of its arrangements recalled the primitive days of the 
Roman conscript fathers. The peasant statesmen sat 
in a long, low room, separated by a partition from the 
stable where they had just tethered their mules, and 
smoking their pipes like the " Tobacco Parliament " 
of the King of Prussia. In order to save time no 
adjournment was made for meals, but a sheep was 
roasted at the ample fire of the Senate-house, and 
devoured by the hungry legislators in the course of 
the debate, while the clerk, sitting cross-legged, read 
aloud official documents, or wrote down on his knees 
the decisions of the august assembly. Subsequently 
however, the number of the senators was increased to 
sixteen, and the indemnities paid to them raised. 
The President received three thousand five hundred 
francs, and the Vice-President three thousand ; five 
senators, resident in the capital, were given fifteen 
hundred francs for their expenses, while the other 
nine, who were not expected to pass more than 
three months of the year at Cetinje, were awarded 
seven hundred and fifty. The refinements of Western 
legislatures have not yet been introduced, and the 
senators still sit down to deliberate with their re- 
volvers and yataghans protruding from their sashes. 
But their power, under the benevolent despotism of 
the Prince, is zero. 

Peter II., like his predecessor, was not only a 
warrior, but an able reformer and administrator. 
The revival of learning in Montenegro was due to his 
efforts. A poet and dramatist himself, partly edu- 
cated in Russia and fully conversant with the prac- 
tices of civilised nations, he felt bitterly the dearth of 

29 



434 



PETER II. AND DANILO II. 



culture in his mountain home. At one time it was 
even thought that he intended to abdicate, and seek 
elsewhere that society which he could not find among 
the shepherds of Cetinje. But he preferred the 
nobler part of striving to educate his countrymen. 
At his orders the printing-press, which four centuries 




THE VLADIKA, PETER II., 
IN CIVIL DRESS. 

ago was the glory of Montenegro, but had been 
destroyed by the Turks at the siege of Obod, was 
once again installed in the monastery at Cetinje. 
The national history was now for the first time com- 
mitted to print, and a valuable collection of those 



MOXTEXEGRIN LITER A TURE. 



435 



ballads, from which we have frequently quoted, was 
made. Between 1835 and 1839 Demetrius Milakovic, 
the Serb historian of Montenegro, published his 
" turtle-doves " or G'rlitze, containing an abridgment 
of the Montenegrin annals down to his own time. 
The Vladikds own works were an excellent basis for 
a national literature, and the quaint historic drama, 




THE VLADIKA, PETER H., 
IN HIS PRIESTLY ROBES. 

" The Serpent of the Mountain," in which he com- 
memorated the massacre of the Turks by Danilo I., 
is a forcible piece of writing. But the exigencies of 
war were unfavourable to the spread of literature. 
In the stress of an invasion the Montenegrins melted 
down the type of Peter's printing press, and shot 
down their enemies with their own ruler's poems. 
During the next reign a local almanack, the " Eaglet," 



436 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

or Orlitch, was the most important publication which 
came from the Montenegrin press. 

Peter II. used his authority to enforce the laws of 
his predecessor, which were often more honoured in 
the breach than in the observance. Before this giant 
of six feet eight inches, who could hit a lemon with a 
rifle and breakfasted merrily amidst the " music " of 
Turkish shells and bullets, even the stubborn chiefs 
of Montenegro felt subdued. Besides, on more than 
one occasion he proved himself to be literally the 
pastor of his flock. In the great famine of 1846 he 
sold his jewels to purchase several shiploads of grain 
for his starving people. He greatly diminished 
blood-feuds by ordering that capital punishment 
should no longer be inflicted by a single executioner, 
but that the criminal should be shot by a platoon 
of men chosen from different clans. It was thus 
impossible for the relatives of the victim to mark 
out for future retribution the clan which had enforced 
the law. Fines were exacted for every offence, and 
the weapons of the offender confiscated until pay- 
ment was made. A prison was built at Cetinje, and 
the Vladika erected a new palace for himself. This 
building, now used as Government offices, is known 
to this day as the " Billiard-table," from the 
favourite game of its founder. Fifty stalwart Mon- 
tenegrins were needed to drag the table up the 
terrible " ladder " of Cattaro to Cetinje, and the feat 
has never been forgotten. Montenegro owes much of 
its present reputation for peaceful progress in the 
path of civilisation to his humanising influence and 
firm character. He was the last ruler who combined 



DANILO II. SUCCEEDS. 43? 

in his own person those triple attributes of primitive 
kingship, where the sovereign is at the same time a 
priest, a lawgiver, and a general. When he died on 
the 31st of October, 1851, at the early age of thirty- 
nine years, his subjects felt that a great man had 
gone from among them. His portrait still adorns the 
capital, and his mausoleum beckons the traveller from 
the solitary summit of the Lovcen. There, on the 
spot where he had often communed with nature, far 
from the habitations of men, he was laid by his own 
wish. A tiny chapel marks the grave, where, five 
years after his death, his remains were removed from 
Cetinje, and frequent pilgrimages to his shrine keep 
his memory green. Before his death, he had recom- 
mended to the chiefs as his successor his nephew 
Danilo, the son of Stanko Petrovic, a young man of 
twenty-three years of age, at that time absent in 
Vienna. As in the case of Peter himself, there was 
considerable opposition to the succession of his 
nephew. Pero Petrovic, another brother of the late 
Vladika and President of the Senate, availed himself 
of his nephew's absence to push his own claims. But 
the curse, which the dying Bishop had invoked upon 
any one who dared to disobey his injunctions, was. 
feared by his people, and Danilo II. was soon recog- 
nised as ruler of the country. But he never enjoyed 
the great popularity of other princes of his house, and 
his brief reign, though one of the most memorable 
in Montenegrin history, was marked by discontent, 
culminating in his assassination. 

His first step was to divest himself of those eccle- 
siastical functions which the rulers of Monteneero 



438 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

had filled since the year 15 16, and the head of the 
Petrovic family had performed since 1696. He was 
moved to adopt this course by various considerations. 
The compulsory celibacy of the Vladikas had always 
been a disadvantage to their country. Experience 
had proved that the succession from uncle to nephew 
was not always smooth. In Danilo's case these 
reasons of public policy were greatly emphasised by 
his affection for a young Serb lady, Darinka Kuecic, 
the daughter of a wealthy merchant at Trieste. It is 
said that the jests of the Czar Nicholas I. were not 
without their effect upon the young man, whose 
natural disinclination to the performance of episcopal 
duties was well known at St. Petersburg. With few 
exceptions, the senators acquiesced in the proposed 
separation of the ecclesiastical and temporal power. 
Danilo received at the Russian capital the approval 
of the defender of the Greek Church, and in 1852, 
not quite a year after his accession, a formal document 
was drawn up, setting forth the future government of 
the country. This Great Charter of the Black Moun- 
tain consisted of six articles. It began by stating 
that henceforth Montenegro should be a temporal 
state, under the hereditary government of a prince ; 
that this prince should be " the illustrious Danilo 
Petrovic of Njegus," and that after his death the suc- 
cession should go to his male descendants in order of 
birth. Provision was then made for the succession in 
the event of the Petrovic line becoming extinct — of 
which there is no probability. The third article 
entrusted those episcopal functions which Danilo had 
abrogated to a bishop or archbishop, chosen by the 



OMARS INVASION. 439 

Government from among the members of the Petrovic 
or other distinguished families of the country. The 
remaining clauses of the document confirmed the 
existing laws and customs of the country, invited 
Danilo to return as soon as possible from Russia, 
and appointed commissioners to acquaint him and 
the Czar with the new state of affairs. 

But the transition to the secular power was not 
accomplished without a struggle against Monte- 
negro's ancient foes. The Turks, who had been 
comparatively quiet during the last years of the pre- 
ceding reign, had never recognised the undoubted 
fact of Montenegrin independence, and regarded this 
change as a direct infringement of that suzerainty 
which they claimed for the Sultan. Omar Pasha was 
ordered to invade the country ; but before he had 
crossed the frontier, a Montenegrin force under 
George Petrovic, one of the Prince's uncles, seized the 
ancient capital of Zabljak, which had so often been 
taken and retaken in these border wars. Danilo 
summoned six thousand men to meet him on the 
banks of the Zeta, and thus for a time prevented the 
garrison of Scutari from relieving the captured town. 
A succession of Montenegrin victories followed, but 
Zabljak was eventually recaptured, and the Monte- 
negrin frontier closely blockaded. The Turkish fleet 
arrived off the Albanian coast, Omar Pasha succeeded 
in entering the country, and Danilo applied for help 
to St. Petersburg and Vienna. But before his envoy 
had returned, a great triumph had raised the spirits of 
his people. On the night of the 20th of January, 
1853, the Montenegrins fell upon Omar's camp, 



44^ PETER It. AND DANlLO 11. 

captured seventeen standards, and carried off as 
trophies three hundred and seventeen gory Turkish 
heads. Omar, nothing daunted, renewed his attack 
from the Herzegovinian frontier near the plain of 
Grahovo, while another Ottoman commander pene- 
trated as far as the famous monastery of Ostrog, only 
to be driven back by Danilo with great loss. Baffled 
by the prowess of his resolute enemies, Omar now 
had recourse to promises, and issued a proclamation 
to all the neighbouring tribes, urging them to lay 
down their arms. Outside the boundaries of Monte- 
negro his fair words were not without effect, but the 
blood of the mountain people was up, and for them 
the Pasha's promises had no attraction. But the 
diplomatic efforts of Austria and Russia at Constanti- 
nople had meanwhile been vigorously exerted on 
behalf of the principality. The rainy season made 
the Zeta valley impassable, and the Turkish troops 
had begun to retire, when orders arrived from the 
Sultan to stop further hostilities. The campaign had 
cost the invaders dearly. In three months, four 
thousand five hundred Turks had fallen in battle 
more than that number had been disabled, and nine 
hundred prisoners had been captured by the enemy. 
Danilo, accompanied by the chief men of his country 
hastened to Vienna to express his thanks to the 
Emperor Francis Joseph for his services. Taught by 
the lessons of the war that the Montenegrins needed 
better weapons and more discipline than they had 
had hitherto, Danilo proceeded to reform the military 
system without delay. Till the year 1853 there had 
been practically no organisation whatever. As soon 



Ml LI TARY OR GA NISA TION. \\ I 

as a hostile army appeared, the stentorian voices of 
the scouts roused the whole male population in a 
few hours. Each man seized his rifle and rushed to 
the fray, ready to fight on his own account, without 
regard to discipline or any preconceived plan of cam- 
paign. Peter II. had, indeed, formed a corps of one 
hundred bodyguards, or perianiks, so called from the 
" tuft of feathers," or perianica, which they wore on 
their caps. His successor instituted a similar body of 
veterans, and introduced the compulsory registration 
of all those between the ages of eighteen and fifty. 
Captains of hundreds and captains of tens were 
selected, a standard-bearer was appointed for each 
company, and the outline of the future force was 
prepared. But there was as yet no attempt to form 
a standing army ; that is not the least achievement of 
the present Prince. Danilo's soldiers had no com- 
pulsory drill, there was no instruction in tactics, no 
barracks, no army regulations. The warriors were 
simply told whom they were to follow when the 
signal for war was given ; and, the conflict over, each 
returned to his cottage. With the exception of 
powder, the Government provided its soldiers with 
nothing, and the few cannon which the country 
possessed had been captured from the Turks. 

Montenegro, to the surprise of both Russia and 
Turkey, and the disgust of many of its own inhabi- 
tants, took no official part in the Crimean War. 
Austria strongly urged a policy of neutrality upon 
the Prince, and Danilo, so far from deserving the 
epithets which the English press heaped upon him, 
did his utmost to restrain his subjects from attacking 



442 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

the Turks. A few skirmishes took place, and there 
was a strong war-party at Cetinje, headed by Peter 
Petrovic, another of the Prince's uncles and President 
of the Senate. A plot, in which Peter and his brother 
George were involved, was discovered, and Danilo's 
position for a time was precarious. His people, ac- 
customed for generations to indulge in the luxury of 
border-raids, could not understand the prohibition of 
their favourite amusement. To attack and harry the 
Turk at the moment, when he was fully occupied in 
defending himself against Russia, seemed to them a 
perfectly natural and legitimate occupation. The 
nearer the Ottoman forces approached, the louder 
grew the cry of dissatisfaction with Danilo's pacific 
injunctions. To sit down calmly when provoked was 
more than the warriors of Crnagora could endure. 
For a few weeks in the spring of 1854 war seemed 
imminent, and even Danilo felt compelled to lodge a 
protest at Constantinople against the warlike pre- 
parations of the Pasha of Mostar, and to make a 
census of those of his subjects who would be avail- 
able for military service. Again, in the following 
year, the threatening attitude of the Montenegrins in 
the neighbourhood of Antivari endangered the pros- 
pects of peace ; but once more the combined influence 
of Austria and their own Prince prevailed over the 
inclinations of the people. But in the summer of 
1855 the temptation proved too strong. In spite of 
a strongly- worded firman from Constantinople, issued 
with the approval of the allies and the Austrian 
Government, bands of Montenegrins ravaged the 
Herzegovina in all directions. Danilo confessed that 



kEl r OLT AGAINST DANILO. 443 

he could not restrain his subjects from acts of pillage, 
which he personally disapproved. A revolt was the 
instant result of this confession. Whole districts of 
Montenegro rose against the ruler, who refused to 
lead them against their ancient foes ; the warlike tribes 
of the Piperi and the Koutchi, who had seceded from 
the principality in 1843 rather than pay taxes, and 
the inhabitants of the fertile Zeta valley, always the 
chief sufferers by Turkish raids, proclaimed themselves 
independent and called upon the rest of the Berda to 
separate from a Prince who had proved himself so 
degenerate a descendant of the two Peters. The ap- 
peal fell flat ; Danilo, at the head of six thousand men, 
attacked the rebels, who at one time meditated a 
junction with the Turks. Patriotism alone prevented 
the execution of this desperate resolve, Rano 
Boskovic, one of the insurgent leaders, set the 
example of submission to his lawful sovereign, and 
the revolt was at an end. Danilo confiscated the 
property of the rebel chiefs as a punishment, and 
held a strict inquiry into their conduct. But the 
funds which he had thus acquired were not sufficient. 
In his dilemma he turned to Vienna, and was even 
willing to accept an Austrian protectorate in return 
for a pecuniary consideration. But his offer met 
with no response, and the new Czar, to whom he then 
applied, sent him nothing but a formal expression of 
his thanks for the sympathy which the principality 
had shown him upon his father's death. At the 
Congress of Paris in 1856 the Prince found that his 
grievances met with little heed from the Powers. His 
vigorous assertion of his country's independence and 



444 PETER it, AMD DANilO 11. 

his claim to an outlet on the sea were alike disregarded, 
and a subsequent manifesto was equally fruitless. 
Danilo demanded the formal recognition of Monte- 
negrin independence by the Powers, an increase of 
territory in both the Albanian and Herzegovinian 
frontiers, an accurate delimitation of the boundary 
between Turkey and Montenegro similar to that 
which had been made in the last reign between 
Austria and the principality, and the cession of 
Antivari. The first of these demands was purely a 
matter of form, for Montenegro had been independent 
de facto ever since the battle of Kossovo in 1389. 
But Danilo was anxious to have his government 
recognised in the councils of diplomacy. For a 
moment it seemed as if the European Areopagus 
favoured his claims ; conferences were held and 
notes exchanged upon the subject. But when the 
Prince visited Paris in 1857 he was informed that 
if he would recognise the suzerainty of the Sultan, 
the latter would cede him a piece of territory in the 
Herzegovina in return for a payment of tithe, would 
give him a civil list and the Turkish title of muchir, 
and would allow the Montenegrin flag access to all 
Turkish pforts. Peter II. had indignantly refused a 
similar offer twenty-five years earlier. But his suc- 
cessor was inclined to accept it, and thus close the 
glorious career of the virgin state by conceding to the 
Turkish diplomatist what the Turkish armies had 
never won. 

Great was the indignation of the Montenegrins at 
what they considered an act of cowardice. Danilo's 
inaction during the Crimean war, his recent refusal 



THE " S WORD OF MONTENEGRO. 445 

to accept the coveted town of Niksic from its in- 
habitants for fear of complications with Turkey, the 
strictness with which he raised the taxes and the 
sanguinary suppression of another revolt of the 
Koutchi tribe, had made him very unpopular. During 
his absence in Paris, his brother Mirko had found 
that a plot had been concocted by George Petrovic 
and other leading men against him, and the flight of 
the principal conspirator did not diminish the dis- 
content. The news of this intended surrender to the 
Sultan was the last straw. Two of his subjects were 
shot on the charge of attempting his life. The 
Emperors of Austria and Russia again turned a deaf 
ear to his requests, and the Turks showed no sign of 
favour towards him. On the contrary, early in 1858 
a Turkish army of seven thousand men under Hussein 
Pasha appeared on his northern frontier. The French 
Emperor, who had recently proved his friendly 
interest by admitting a number of young Montene- 
grins as pupils to the seminary of Louis-le-Grand, 
alone took the side of this hard-pressed state. 
Napoleon III. pledged himself to guarantee the in- 
dependence of a country which had so boldly with- 
stood the soldiers of his uncle, and a French squadron 
was sent to Ragusa to watch events. 

But it was by their own right hands that the 
warriors vindicated their threatened liberty. Their 
army was commanded by Mirko, the Prince's brother, 
and the most celebrated commander whom even that 
land of heroes has produced. His exploits gained 
him the name of the " Sword of Montenegro," and 
his songs have won him a high place among Balkan 



446 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

poets. He was at once the Lysander and the 
Tyrtseus of the modern Sparta. His fiery disposition 
was thought by his countrymen to unfit him for the 
duties of a ruler, but as a leader in battle he was un- 
rivalled. 

The decisive battle took place in the stony plain 
of Grahovo — a spot which will always be re- 
membered as the Marathon of Montenegro. The 
Turkish army of seven thousand men lay encamped 
on the plain, while the Montenegrins lined the narrow 
rocky defiles which are the sole means of entrance 
and exit. But before giving the signal for the attack, 
Mirko made a final effort at conciliation by sending 
M. Delarue, the Prince's secretary, to see the Turkish 
commissioner at the fortress of Klobuk, six hours 
distant. The envoy was arrested on the way, and 
on the 13th of May the fight began. The Turkish 
troops, shut up in a basin, like the French at Sedan, 
were completely at the mercy of their adversaries. 
Mirko waited until he had surrounded them on all 
sides, and then gave the order to fire. Volleys of 
shot fell from the heights upon the helpless Turks, 
and then, throwing their rifles aside, the Montene- 
grins drew their yataghans and rushed down like 
wolves upon the fold. The Turkish artillerymen 
were cut down at their guns, and the bravery of the 
Imperial Guard availed nothing against the onward 
rush of the mountaineers. Flight was impossible, 
for at the end of the plain a fresh detachment awaited 
the fugitives. The battle lasted till the following 
day, and an Austrian gendarme, who visited the fatal 
spot a few weeks later, counted no less than 2,237 



THE " CODE DANILO. 447 

skeletons still lying on the plain. Of the 4,500 
Montenegrins only 400 were killed ; the losses of the 
Turks amounted to eight times that number. The 
marvel was that any escaped. In the arsenal at 
Cetinje there are carefully preserved a quantity of 
English medals, awarded to our allies of the Crimea, 
and captured by the Montenegrins from the Turkish 
veterans in this battle. But the victory bore other 
and more valuable fruits. The prowess of the victors 
spread far and wide ; from that time Grahovo has 
belonged to its conquerors ; and though no monu- 
ment marks the battlefield, the triumph of Mirko is 
commemorated in one of the finest of the national 
ballads. Everywhere the rayahs looked to Monte- 
negro as their champion, and the hapless Herze- 
govinians were made to feel the vengeance of the 
vanquished Turks for the losses which the army of 
Mirko had inflicted. 

Danilo, with his usual caution, hesitated to follow 
up his victory. He had no wish to assume the 
offensive, but preferred to await the decision of 
Europe. In October, 1858, a commission, composed 
of the Ambassadors of the Great Powers, met at 
Constantinople. No recognition of Montenegrin 
independence was made by the Sultan, and the 
labours of the frontier commissioners, which began 
next year, were not final. Two more Turkish wars 
were needed to fix the Turco-Montenegrin boundary. 

A scarcely less important event was the promul- 
gation of a new code of laws. The " Code Danilo," 
as it is called, which came into force in 1855, and 
remained the law of the land until it was superseded 



448 PETER II. AND DANILO II. 

by the recent code of 1888, was printed in both Serb 
and Italian — a language which is better known than 
any other foreign tongue in the Black Mountain. 
The laws of Danilo show a considerable advance 
upon those of Peter I. But some of the enactments 
are very curious, and recall a primitive state of 
society. Whilst one article declares the equality of 
every citizen before the law, and lays down the 
democratic principles of the universal ownership of 
land and the equal right of all to hold office, another 
allows a man who is struck to kill the striker, provided 
that he does so at once ; but if he delays, the offence 
is murder. Theft is severely punished, provision is 
made for the election of judges by the people, and 
fines are imposed upon any judge who insults a 
suitor. In short, the " Code Danilo " is the embodi- 
ment of that " civil and religious liberty " which the 
Montenegrin motto declares to be " the reward of 
valour." 

Danilo did not long survive the triumph of his 
arms over the Turks. In the summer of i860 he 
went with the Princess to take a course of baths at 
the picturesque hamlet of Persano, on the shore of 
the Bocche di Cattaro. On the 13th of August they 
had gone for a walk in the cool of the day along the 
promenade outside the walls of the latter town. As 
the clock struck ten, the princely couple summoned 
their boatman for the return journey to their villa at 
Persano. Danilo was in the act of stepping from the 
quay into the boat when a bullet struck him and he 
fell back in the arms of his wife. Tedeschi, his 
physician, was soon in attendance, but all his efforts 



DANILO ASSASSINATED. 449 

were useless. Twenty-four hours later the Prince 
expired, and the following night his sorrowing widow 
accompanied his corpse to Cetinje. His assassin, an 
exiled Montenegrin, Kadic by name, was arrested, 
tried, and hung without confessing the motive of his 
act. 




30 



VII. 



MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 



(i860— 1896.) 



The security of the Petrovic dynasty on the throne 
was riot affected for a moment by the murder of 
Danilo II. The late Prince had left no male offspring, 
for his only child was a daughter ; but the succession 
had been determined five years before his death. 
His nephew Nicholas, son of Mirko, was then nomi- 
nated as his heir, and the young Prince was at once 
proclaimed by the Senate without opposition. His 
father, Mirko, who, though the elder brother of Danilo, 
had bean passed over in 1 85 1, accepted without a 
murmur this further disregard of his claims, and in 
the capacity of President of the Senate was content 
to serve to the end of his life as the first subject of 
his son. Together with his wife Stana, who died last 
year at a ripe old age, he watched with loyal devotion 
over the young Prince's career. 

Nicholas I. was born at Njegus, the ancestral home 
of his race, on the 25th of September, 1841, and had 
therefore not quite completed his nineteenth year when 



THE PRINCES EDUCATION. 45 I 

the sudden death of his uncle placed him on the throne. 
He had been prepared by a Western education for 
the duties which lay before him. The excellent 
French which he speaks was acquired at the Academy 
of Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he studied after 
several years spent in learning Serb history and the 
Italian and German languages under the care of his 
aunt Darinka's family at Trieste. But the young 
mountaineer, who had been wisely allowed to run 
wild as a child in his highland home, felt the atmo- 
sphere of the Parisian class-room oppressive and 
stifling. He took little pleasure in the gaieties of 
town life, and sighed for the free air of the Black 
Mountains where his childhood had been spent in 
manly games. " My country," he once said, " is a 
wilderness of stones ; it is arid," it is poor, but I adore 
it ! And if I were offered the whole of the Balkan 
Peninsula in exchange, why, I would not hear one 
word!" His poetic nature, nurtured amidst the grand 
scenery of his native land, gave early promise of that 
literary taste to which we owe a volume of Serb 
poetry and two tragedies, the Empress of the Balkans 
and Prince Arbanit. Whenever he could escape from 
the dull round of his academic studies, he sought fresh 
air and woods and mountains which reminded him 
of his own. He learnt to shoot with an accuracy 
which surprised his countrymen ; a fearless rider, he 
traversed every pass of the mountains on horseback, 
and imbibed in the nursery those warlike traditions 
which he was to perpetuate beneath the walls of 
Niksic. He seemed to Lady Strangford, when she 
visited " the eastern shores of the Adriatic " shortly 



452 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

after his accession, " an extraordinarily handsome 
man, very tall and well made, with hair and eyes 
nearly black, and a naturally soft, somewhat sad 
expression of face." When the present writer met 
him two years ago, he bore his fifty-two years lightly, 
and his figure was as erect and his eye as keen as 
when that description was penned. No one can see 
and converse with him without feeling that he is a 
born leader of men, who, if he had been Prime Minister 
of a large state, instead of Prince of a small one, 
would have made a great mark upon the history of 
Europe. 

Two months after his accession the young Prince 
married the lady to whom, in accordance with Monte- 
negrin custom, he had been affianced from childhood. 
Milena Voukotic was the daughter of a Montenegrin 
vo'ivode, who had been the brother-in-arms of Mirko 
at the great day of Grahovo. The Princess is still 
famous for her beauty, and her daughters have won 
the admiration of the fastidious Russian Court, and 
are the favourites of Queen Victoria. The nine 
children, three of them sons, who are the issue of this 
marriage, have secured the succession to the House 
of Petr6vic. 

Prince Nicholas had been little more than a year 
on the throne when war broke out with the Sultan. 
The Turks were burning to avenge their defeat at 
Grahavo, while the rayahs of the Herzegovina only 
waited a favourable moment to join hands with their 
brothers across the border. The insurrection of 1861 
in that province excited the utmost enthusiasm in 
Montenegro. The Prince, at the entreaty of the 



THE TURKISH WAR OF 1 862. 453 

Powers, followed at first the neutral policy of his 
predecessor, and even permitted the Turks to convey 
provisions across his country to their garrison at 
Niksic. But it was again found impossible to check 
the fervour of the mountaineers. Frontier incidents 
occurred, and Omar Pasha proclaimed the blockade 
of the Principality. Early in 1862 he declared war 
against Montenegro, and his army entered the country 
in three divisions. Diplomatic protests were in vain, 
and the Prince's father and father-in-law lost no time 
in taking the field. The valley of the Zeta, always 
the weakest point of Montenegro's natural defences, 
was the principal theatre of the war. Mirko per- 
formed prodigies of valour, and his heroic defence 
of the Upper Monastery of Ostrog with twenty-six 
men, and his subsequent march to Cetinje with the 
loss of a single soldier, may be compared with the 
futile attempts of the Turks to capture that monastic 
stronghold a century earlier, when thirty men success- 
fully held the shrine of St. Basil and the ledge of rock 
beneath it, against an army of thirty thousand. No 
one who has ever visited Ostrog will doubt the possi- 
bility of these marvellous feats. The only means of 
dislodging a well-provisioned garrison is to smoke 
them out of this hole in the rocks, and the Prince is 
fond of telling how on this memorable occasion his 
father came out of it " as black as a coal." In a 
pitched battle near Rjeka, Mirko, with a mere handful 
of men, held a large force of Turks at bay, sustaining 
his strength for a whole day on nothing more sub- 
stantial than a few pears. Even lads of twelve and 
thirteen shouldered a rifle, and the Prince's sister 



454 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

followed her father to the war. But the disciplined 
Ottoman troops, led by the ablest of Turkish com- 
manders, slowly yet steadily drove the gallant 
defenders back. The rich valley of the Zeta was 
ravaged by the invaders, and in spite of a temporary 
advantage gained by the Montenegrins, their enemies 
advanced steadily upon the capital. Worst of all, the 
bullet of an assassin had nearly slain the young Prince, 
on his way to the front with the Dowager Princess 
and his wife. His attendants were wounded by 
splinters from the rocks, but he and his family 
escaped unscathed. His people, dejected by their 
losses, without provisions, without allies, withdrew 
from the unequal contest, and even Mirko, after sixty 
battles, was bound to confess that the game was up. 
Europe, with the exception of Pius IX., who had 
forbidden the Albanian Catholics to attack the 
Montenegrin Christians, had hitherto looked on with 
indifference. But diplomacy at last intervened ; the 
Prince and the Pasha met at Rjeka, and the Con- 
vention of Scutari, dated the 31st of August, ended 
the war. The terms of the Convention were suffi- 
ciently severe. It was expressly stipulated that 
Mirko should quit his country for ever — a remarkable 
tribute to his prowess, and the best proof of the fear 
which he inspired. But this stipulation was never 
carried out ; and the article which gave the Turks 
power to erect guard-houses along the valley of the 
Zeta was subsequently abandoned by the Sultan. 
But no Montenegrin fortifications were to be erected 
on the Turkish frontiers, no family was to enter the 
Principality without a Turkish passport, and the im- 



DEATH OF MIRKO. 45 % 

portation of war material at the port of Antivari was 
strictly prohibited. On the other hand, the Turks 
agreed to allow the export and import of merchandise 
at that harbour free of duty. 

An interval of fourteen years' peace occurred 
between the first and second Turkish wars of the 
present reign, and Montenegro sorely needed it. 
Famine had followed in the trail of the sword. 
France alone sent corn to the value of 600,000 francs 
for the relief of the prevailing distress, and Napoleon 
III. assured Prince Nicholas at the Paris Exhibition 
of 1867 of his continued good-will toward the warrior- 
people. But a fresh disaster befell the country. 
Cholera made its first appearance in the Principality, 
and the Prince returned just in time to support his 
dying father in his arms. Mirko has left a great 
name both as a poet and a warrior, and the rice and 
coffee plantations which he started show that he was 
not blind to the uses of agriculture. For a moment 
it looked as if the Turks would renew their attacks 
now that their dreaded antagonist was gone. But 
the alarm passed away, and the Prince was left 
unmolested to pursue his contemplated reforms. 

The first of these was an improved military organi- 
sation. The great losses sustained in the late war 
had convinced him that the measures of his prede- 
cessor nine years earlier were inadequate. Arms 
were the first necessity, and a large number of rifles 
were purchased in France by means of a lottery; 
while Napoleon III., the Czar, Prince Michael of 
Servia, and another Serb provided the funds for 
further munitions of war. Prince Michael also lent 



456 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

the services of an able gunsmith, who constructed a 
small arsenal at Obod, on the site of the old printing- 
press, and of three artillery officers, who started a 
cannon-foundry near Cetinje. A trumpeter was also 
sent from Belgrade to teach . the Montenegrins the 
signals in use in the Servian army. Having thus 
provided his country with modern weapons, Prince 
Nicholas set about the improvement of his army. 
In 1870, Captain Wlahovic, a Servian officer, and 
joint author of an excellent work on Montenegro, 
was entrusted with the task of drawing up a scheme 
for the better organisation of the Montenegrin forces. 
The male population between the ages of seventeen 
and sixty was divided into two divisions, each about 
ten thousand strong, and subdivided into two brigades 
of five battalions apiece. Each battalion was formed 
by eight companies. The staff consisted of the Prince 
as commander-in-chief, seven voivodes,ot whom the first 
was Elia Plamenac, the present Minister for War, and 
several aids-de-camp. Every Montenegrin of mili- 
tary age — for the army, as Scharnhorst said of Prussia, 
was simply " the nation under arms " — received a rifle 
and a stock of cartridges from the Government. 
Every one, even in time of peace, always carries a 
revolver, and carries it loaded, by special command 
of the Prince. A Montenegrin loves his weapons as 
his children ; infants are allowed to play with the 
butt-ends of pistols, and a native proverb says, " You 
might as well take from me my brother as my rifle." 
Artillery, which had scarcely existed in the country 
hitherto, were now made a regular arm of the service, 
and two mountain batteries formed part of the new 



MILITARY REFORMS. 457 

military scheme. Cavalry can never be of much use 
in so mountainous a region ; moreover the cost of 
forage in the western portion of the Principality 
makes a horse too expensive a luxury for any but 
a few. In 1894, however, the complete equipment 
for a squadron of cavalry, together with two in- 
structors, was sent to the Prince by the Sultan. 
Such was the military organisation of Montenegro 
till last year, when Prince Nicholas began the experi- 
ment of a standing army, drilled by officers who have 
had a special education in tactics abroad. In August, 
1895, a Russian ship arrived at Antivari with a cargo 
of thirty thousand rifles and a great quantity of 
cannon, cartridges, and other war material, as a 
present from the new Czar to his namesake. Russian 
instructors had already arrived, a military college was 
established at Podgorica, and barracks for a battalion 
of soldiers were built at Cetinje. These barracks will 
be formally opened on the 29th of July of the present 
year, the bicentenary of the dynasty. Every Monte- 
negrin, except the Mussulman inhabitants of Dulcigno, 
who are exempt on payment of a capitation tax, 
will henceforth undergo compulsory military training. 
But neither last year nor in 1870 was any provision 
made for a commissariat department. That is the 
defect of the Montenegrin military system. The 
wives, daughters, and sisters of the mountaineers still 
carry their reserves of powder and their food and 
drink on their backs, and no ambulance corps or 
intelligence bureau is to be found in the rear of a 
Montenegrin army. 

In the early years of his reign the Prince was 



45& MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS 1. 

largely under the influence of his aunt, the Dowager 
Princess Darinka, whose desire was to introduce 
Western, and especially French, institutions into the 
Black Mountain. Mirko had acted as a check 
upon this liberal policy, but shortly after his death 
a so-called " constitution " was granted. On St. 
George's Day, 1868, a proclamation announced to 
the astonished people, accustomed to look upon their 
Gospodar as the incarnation of all authority, that he 
had voluntarily renounced his uncontrolled rights 
over the public funds, while reserving the prerogative 
of pardon and the complete direction of foreign 
affairs. But neither the "constitution" of 1868, nor 
the creation of a ministry, with departments for 
foreign and home affairs, war, justice, and a President 
of the Council, has in the smallest degree diminished 
the practical autocracy of Prince Nicholas. He can 
truly say, like the Grand Monarque, L'etat, dest mot. 
He is practically his own Premier, and both practically 
and theoretically his own Lord Chancellor and com- 
mander-in-chief. Whoever would see benevolent 
despotism in full working order had better go to 
Montenegro, whose ruler assured the present writer 
that there would be no parliamentary government 
there for a century. As he once put it in a neat 
epigram : " A prince ought to be a Liberal, his 
subjects Conservatives." 

All reforms in his country have naturally proceeded 
from above, and every change which has been effected 
during his reign has been directly due to his initia- 
tive. It was thus, that on the visit which he paid to 
the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, in 



EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 459 

the winter of 1868-9, ne ma -de a powerful appeal to 
Alexander II. on behalf of Montenegrin education. 
In spite of the efforts of Danilo II., who gave lessons 
himself to a few children of the chief families in a 
room of his palace, and the two small schools founded 
by his predecessor previous to the year 1869, there 
was no instruction of any kind to be obtained in the 
whole country except at a tiny academy for priests, 
installed in the monastery at Cetinje. The Czar and 
his family lent a ready ear to the Prince's words. 
Prince Dolgorouki, one of whose ancestors had visited 
Montenegro in the days of Stephen the Little a 
century earlier, was sent on a tour of inspection. 
Funds were provided for the foundation of a 
seminary for boys, called the Bogoslavia, while a 
school for the daughters of the best families was 
established under the auspices of the Russian 
Empress, and christened the Jeuski Crnogorski 
Institute. The success of both has been complete. 
In a very short time forty pupils of the Bogoslavia 
had qualified as schoolmasters, and scattered through- 
out the country the seeds of education. The fame of 
the girls' school has spread abroad. Residents on 
the Bocche di Cattaro send their daughters to attend 
it, and foreign diplomatists, accredited to the Monte- 
negrin Court, find there an excellent training for their 
children. At the present time, primary education is 
universal in the Black Mountain, and lecturers are 
appointed by the village councils to explain the 
advantages of learning. But in time of war, study 
is apt to be neglected, for instructors of youth eagerly 
exchange the pen for the sword, and one of the chief 



460 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS 1. 

inspectors of schools played a prominent part in the 
rising of the Herzegovina. The highest education is, 
however, still unobtainable in the Principality. The 
present Finance Minister, M. Matanovic, was edu- 
cated in Paris, while the Minister of Justice, M. 
Bogosic, came from Odessa, and many leading men 
have been at school in Italy. But it is the desire of the 
Prince that his subjects should be educated in their 
own country, if possible, in order that they may remain 
Montenegrins and not imbibe that spirit of discontent 
which has in some cases been found to be the result of 
a foreign education. His own sons have accordingly 
been placed under the care of a resident Swiss tutor. 
The insurrection of the people on the shores of the 
Bocche di Cattaro against the Austrian Government 
in 1 869 was a sore temptation to their neighbours and 
kinsmen. Touching appeals were made to the Monte- 
negrins by the warlike Krivoscians, who dwelt on the 
heights between Grahovo and the sea, and had held 
their mountain fastnesses against every invader for 
generations. Many of their families fled for refuge 
over the border, and their fiery war-song bade " the 
Black Prince " come " at the head of his faithful 
Montenegrins from the ruins of Obod, whither the 
good genius of the Dalmatian mountains has flown 
to awaken him out of his sleep." But although the 
struggle was so fierce and so near, the Montenegrins 
remained neutral at the command of their cautious : 
ruler. The Emperor Francis Joseph fully recognised 
the harm which Prince Nicholas could have inflicted 
upon him had he chosen, and an Austrian decoration 
was the outward token of his gratitude. 



THE TURKISH WAR OF 1 876. 46 1 

But when the Herzegovina rose against the Turk 
in 1875, it was impossible to hold the Montenegrins 
back. The " Andrassy Note," which had this object, 
fell flat. From the outset, Montenegrin volunteers 
took an active part in a rising which began almost at 
their doors. According to the Turkish version, whole 
battalions of them fought in the ranks of the insur- 
gents. An army was collected at Skodra to keep 
them in check ; strongly worded remonstrances were 
addressed by the Porte to the Prince. The reply was 
a demand for the cession of part of the Herzegovina 
and the publication of an offensive and defensive 
alliance with Prince Milan of Servia. On the 2nd of 
July, 1876, Montenegro followed the example of her 
brother Serbs, and declared war against her ancient 
enemy. An army of eleven thousand men, under the 
command of the Prince, at once invaded the Herze- 
govina. The old spirit and the new military organisa- 
tion of the invaders speedily made themselves felt. 
The Herzegovinians flocked to the Prince's standard, 
and he soon had twenty thousand men under his 
control. The first important engagement took place 
on the 28th, at the village of Vucidol, where Mouktar 
Pasha, the Turkish commander, was defeated and 
wounded. A little later, the army of the South, 
amounting to six thousand men and led by the 
Prince's cousin, Bozo Petrovic, the present Monte- 
negrin Premier, twice defeated Mahmoud Pasha at 
Medun, and, after a four months' siege, that place 
surrendered. An armistice was concluded in Novem- 
ber, and the Prince sent two plenipotentiaries to 
Constantinople to negotiate a peace. But his pro- 



462 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

posals were rejected, and in April an eloquent 
manifesto of their ruler bade the Montenegrins 
recommence hostilities. They were better armed, 
thanks to the rifles captured from the Turks, than 
in the previous campaign, and the knowledge that 
Russia was about to declare war more than com- 
pensated for the defection of Servia. The Prince, 
who showed himself a master of this mountain war- 
fare, craftily led the Turks on by means of a feigned 
retreat into the valley of the Zeta. Believing that 
the enemy had given up the contest, Suleiman Pasha 
had already telegraphed to Constantinople that the 
history of Montenegro had closed, and that it was 
high time to appoint the first Turkish governor. His 
troops occupied the monastery of Ostrog, the scene 
of Mirko's heroic feat in the last war. But it was 
their only success. Surprised and surrounded in the 
midst of the mountains, they were forced to beat a 
retreat to Spuz, with a loss of nearly half their 
strength. Relieved by the diversion which the march 
of the Russians over the Danube had now created, 
the Prince laid siege to Niksic, which, after a four 
months' siege, fell into his hands. This was the great 
exploit of the war ; loud was the rejoicing at Cetinje, 
and to this day the Prince recalls with keen delight 
the " Homeric battles," which he fought beneath the 
walls of the old Turkish town. The harbours of 
Antivari and Dulcigno next fell into his hands, and 
he composed a hymn of triumph to the sea, which, 
at last, after years of weary waiting, his standards had 
reached. This was practically the last event of the 
war. The Prince had summoned Skodra to surrender 



EXD OF THE WAR. 



46; 



and was on the point of beginning the siege, when he 
heard of the armistice between Russia and Turkey. 
On the last day of January, 1878, he suspended 
military operations. Sovereign and people had shown 





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themselves worthy descendants of their warlike 
ancestors, They had fought with equal courage and 



464 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

success — nearly twenty Turks had fallen for every 
one of their own warriors — and it was noted as a 
remarkable fact when a Montenegrin allowed himself 
to be taken prisoner. 

Their efforts had not been in vain. Had, indeed, 
the Treaty of San Stefano been adopted, Monte- 
negro would have been more than trebled in size 
and its population doubled, while its eastern boun- 
dary would have been almost conterminous with the 
western frontier of Servia. Thus the two branches 
of the Serb stock, so long divided, would have been 
practically reunited, and the restoration of the Serb 
Empire, which the Prince had told his subjects was 
his dream, might have been realised. But this did 
not suit the policy of Austria. The Treaty of Berlin 
was substituted for that of San Stefano, and the new 
Montenegrin frontiers, though much larger than those 
of 1856, were much smaller than those which Russia 
had tried to procure for her ally. The area of the 
Principality was more than doubled ; its population 
increased from one hundred and ninety-six thousand 
to two hundred and eighty thousand. The important 
places of Podgorica, Spuz, and Zabljak, the old 
capital of Ivan the Black, were added to it, and 
Antivari with its harbour was confirmed to the Prince 
on condition that he should have no ships of war. 
But he was ordered by the Congress to restore 
Dulcigno to the Turks, while the village of Spica, 
which commands the beautiful bay of Antivari, was 
incorporated with Austria-Hungary. The former of 
these grievances was soon redressed ; the latter still 
rankles in the breast of Prince Nicholas, The 



THE DULCIGNO DEMONSTRATION. 465 

Albanian towns of Gusinje and Plava were considered 
an adequate compensation for this bitter disappoint- 
ment. The Porte now formally recognised the in- 
dependence of Montenegro, which had practically 
existed for nearly five centuries, and the Principality 
took over a portion of the Turkish Debt correspond- 
ing to the area of Turkish territory received. 

This settlement was not final. Even now, neither 
the amount of the Debt nor the exact frontier has 
been determined. The Albanian inhabitants of Plava 
and Gusinje, notorious for their turbulence, refused to 
be annexed to Montenegro. An " Albanian League " 
was formed to resist the cession, and fighting recom- 
menced between the two nationalities. A compro- 
mise, suggested by Count Corti, the Italian Ambas- 
sador at Constantinople, failed ; but, as a solution of 
the difficulty, Gusinje and Plava were restored to 
Turkey, while the district and harbour of Dulcigno 
were awarded to Montenegro. The Porte refused to 
consent ; but a naval demonstration of the Powers, 
held before Dulcigno, at the suggestion of Great 
Britain, in September, 1880, prevailed upon it to 
yield. Montenegro at last had gained her coveted 
access to the sea with a seaboard of thirty miles. A 
rare example of political gratitude, she has never 
forgotten the service which England rendered her on 
this occasion, and the name of Gladstone is held in 
reverence by every shepherd of her remote moun- 
tains. 

The fifteen years which have elapsed since then 
have witnessed the peaceable development of the 
country under an able and enlightened autocracy 



466 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

Prince Nicholas has succeeded in making himself a 
model to despotic rulers all over the world. He has 
broken down the prejudice of his subjects against 
highways, and a fine carriage road now connects 
Cattaro with Cetinje, and Cetinje with Niksic, by- 
way of Podgorica and Danilograd, while the circle 
is to be completed by continuing it from Niksic to 
the sea at Risano. The fertile valley of the Zeta 
has thus been opened up, and the roads from Podgo- 
rica to the Lake of Skodra, and from Vir Bazar to 
Antivari, have put it in direct communication with 
the Montenegrin coast. It is in the eastern part of the 
Principality, the new Montenegro, that most remains 
to be done, for the splendid beech-forests which cover 
that region should, if made accessible by roads, prove 
a rich source of revenue. The acquisitions of the 
Berlin Treaty have, in fact, altered the character and 
must affect the future of the Principality. Montenegro 
is no longer a barren mountain shut off from the sea, 
without commerce, without timber, without pasture- 
lands. Whether its present frontier is as defensible 
as its old one is a question of opinion ; but its material 
resources are much greater, while the Albanian sub- 
jects, whom it acquired at Podgorica and elsewhere, 
are valuable members of a community which is still 
indisposed to industrial pursuits. The Prince has 
done all he can to induce his warriors to follow the 
arts of peace without forgetting those of war. He 
has encouraged trade at his two ports by means of 
bounties, and has sent officials to study commercial 
life at Marseilles. During a recent journey abroad, 
he ordered each of his subjects to plant one vine, in 



RELATIONS WITH AUSTRIA AND RUSSIA. 467 

order to increase the quantity of the red Montenegrin 
vintage, which is as yet insufficient for exportation 
He has cultivated tobacco with success, but even now 
his land is visited by severe famines. Meanwhile the 
warriors have not degenerated. The frontier commis- 
sion, which was appointed to delimitate the Turco- 
Montenegrin frontier after the Berlin Treaty, gave 
rise, by its decisions, to a border quarrel between the 
Montenegrins and Albanians. The blood-feuds thus 
created — for that practice is not even yet extinct — 
enabled the mountaineers to " keep their hands in," 
and frequent encounters took place, which led to 
diplomatic negotiations with Turkey. At last there 
was a solemn reconciliation between the combatants. 
The parties met on the river Lim, and after a religious 
ceremony the leaders, advancing by couples to the 
bank with a stone in their hands, flung it into the 
stream. So the blood-feud was washed away. 

With Austria the Prince's relations have been, 
since 1880, less friendly than with Turkey. He is 
now hemmed in by Austria on almost every side. 
An Austrian governor holds Bosnia and the Herze- 
govina, the cradle of his race ; Austrian troops are 
stationed in the Sandjak of Novibazar, and thus 
cut him off from Servia ; Austrian forts guard the 
approach from Cattaro, and Austrian diplomacy 
retains Spica. The enemy of the future is not at 
Constantinople, but Vienna. Russia has maintained 
her ancient sympathy with him. Alexander III. 
gave him a yacht and called him his " only friend " ; 
Nicholas II. has sent him arms and instructors to 
teach their use, and two matrimonial alliances of his 



468 MONTENEGRO UNDER NICHOLAS I. 

daughters have connected him with the Russian 
Imperial family. But to regard Montenegro as a 
mere outpost of Russia is to ignore her whole history 
and the independent character of her Prince and 
people. 

The last few years have seen the establishment of 
the first Montenegrin public library and museum, 
which together with a theatre, where the Prince's 
plays are performed, occupies a building known as 
the Zetski Dom. In 1888 a new Code, the work of 
M. Bogosic, of the University of Odessa, which had 
been projected immediately after the war, was promul- 
gated, and the manner in which the village justices of 
the Black Mountain interpret it has won the approval 
of its author. In July, 1893, the Principality cele- 
brated with great rejoicings the four hundredth anni- 
versary of the first Slavonic printing press, the 
foundation of which we have described, and on the 
29th of the same month in the present year it will 
keep the bicentenary of the reigning dynasty. 

The Montenegrins will then be able to look back 
upon a long and glorious history, while their ruler 
can justly boast that of the seven princes of the 
Petrovic I House he has done the most for his 
country. 



THE END. 



IN DEX. 



A. 

Aaron of Moldavia, 52 

Actium, battle of, 5 

Akermann, convention of, 91 

Albania, under Simeon, 138 , 
under Samuel, 152 ; language 
and customs, 164 ; under John 
Asen II., 175 ; opposes Monte- 
negro, 465 ; blood-feuds, 467 

Alexander I. of Bulgaria, elected 
Prince, 219 ; character, 219 ; 
political difficulties, 220 ; coup 
d'etat, 221 ; "Prince of North 
and South Bulgaria," 223 ; his 
popularity, 224 ; " hero of 
Slivnitza," 226 ; conspiracies 
against, 227 ; kidnapped, 227 ; 
returns, 230 ; abdicates, 230 ; 
" Count Hartenau," 231 

Alexander of Macedon defeats 
Getce, 2 

Alexander John I. of Roumania, 
see Couza 

Alexander I., King of Servia, 
arrests the Regents, 350 ; sus- 
pends constitution, 351 

Alexis, Czar of Russia, 70 

Amurath I., defeats Serbs at 
Kossovo, 288 ; assassinated, 
289 

Amurath II., claims Servian 
throne, 292 ; defeated by 
Hunyad, 293 

Andrew II. of Hungary, 201 

Anne, Empress of Russia, 78 



Antoninus Pius, 22 
Antony, Mark, 5 

Apollodorus, architect of Trajan's 
bridge, 11 ; of Trajan's column, 

15 

Arsenius, Serb Patriarch, migra- 
tion of, 305 

Asen, John I., his revolution, 
164; crowned "Czar of the 
Bulgarians and Greeks," 166 ; 
his wars, 168 ; assassinated, 
169 

Asen, John II., his prosperous 
reign, 175 ; extent of his 
empire, 175 ; increase of trade, 
177 ; his capital, 178 ; refounds 
National Church, 179 ; dies, 
179 

Asen, John III., 182 

Asen, Michael, 180 

Asen, Peter, 164, 169 

Augustus, Roman Emperor, 5 

Aurelian evacuates Dacia, 24 

Austria, obtains Bucovina, 81 ; 
and Dalmatia, 412 ; her rela- 
tions with Montenegro, 440, 
460, 467 

Avars in Roumania, 29 



B. 

Babylas, Prince-Bishop 

Montenegro, 381 
Bajazet I., 289 
Baldwin of Flanders, 172 
Balsha I., 361 



of 



32 



469 



4;o 



INDEX. 



Balsha II., 362 

Balta-Liman, convention of, 97 

Basil, the " Bulgar-Slayer," 33 ; 
his campaigns, 155 ; his 
cruelty, 156 ; his conquests, 
158 

Basil " the Wolf " ; his criminal 
code, 66 ; his wars, . 68 ; his 
flight, 68 

Bassarab, Matthew, his govern- 
ment of Moldavia, 66 ; feud 
with Basil, 68 ; death, 69 

Bassarab, Neagoe, 46 

Basta, Italian general, 56 

Bathori, Andrew, 54 

Bathori, Sigismund, Prince of 
Transylvania, 53 

Belgrade, part of Bulgarian 
Empire, 138, 154, 170 ; cap- 
tured by Hungary, 284 ; " City 
of the Holy War," 295 ; seat 
of Turkish Government, 301 ; 
entirely free, 337 

Beltcheff, murder of, 241 

Berlin, treaty of, and Roumania, 

116 ; and Bulgaria, 213 ; and 
Servia, 345 ; and Montenegro, 
464 

Bessarabia devastated by Simeon, 
31 ; annexed by Russia, 85 ; 
southern part joined to Mol- 
davia, 101 ; again Russian, 

117 ; refuge of Bulgarians, 202 
Bibescou, George, 95, 96 
Bismarck advises Prince Charles, 

108 ; and Prince Alexander, 
219 
Black George, hero of modern 
Servia, 311 ; frees his country, 
313; "supreme chief," 315; 
leaves Servia, 316 ; murdered, 

319 
" Black Legion," 303 
Bcerebistes, Dacian king, 4 
Bogdan, 44 
Bogomile heresy, 146, 147 ; 

serious results of, 149 
Bolizza, Mariano, his account of 

Montenegro, 387 
Boljars, Bulgarian nobles, 157, 

158, 192 



Boril, Bulgarian Czar, 174 
Boris I., converted to Christianity, 

131; Roman or Orthodox ? 133 ; 

retires to a cloister, 134 
Boris II., 150, 151, 154 
Boris, Baby, his "conversion,"243 
Bosnia, united to Servia, 258 ; 

conquered by Dusan, 284 ; 

independent, 284 ; Turkish, 

297 ; occupied by Austria, 345 
Boyards, Roumanian nobles, 

their privileges, 47 ; revolts 

of, 62 ; laws relating to, 67 ; 

decline of, JJ 
Brancovano, Constantine, 70 
Brankovic, George, builds Se- 

mendria, 293 ; in Montenegro, 

367 
Brankovic, Paul, 254 
Brankovic, Vouk, traitor of 

Kossovo, 288 
Bratiano, John, 96, ill 
Brigandage, 199, 225, 302, 307 
Bucovina, cession of, 81 
Bulgari, their origin, 123 ; their 

customs, 125 
Bulgarian atrocities, 207, 209 ; 

constitution, 216 ; literature, 

under Simeon, 141 ; under 

John Alexander, 187 ; revival 

of, 203 



Caesar, Julius, 4 
Cantacuzene, Scherban, 69 
Cantacuzene, Stephen, 73 
Cantemir, Demetrius, 70 
Caracalla, edict of, 21 ; victory 

of, 23 
" Carmen Sylva," 109 
Catherine II. of Russia, her 

Roumanian policy, 79, 81 ; 

writes to Montenegro, 405 
Cattaro, Romans at, 356 ; capture 

of, 417 ; revolt at, 460 
Ceslav, Servian prince, 145, 256 
Cetinje, becomes Montenegrin 

capital, 371 ; captured by 

Turks, 389, 391, 399 
Charles I., King of Roumania, 

elected prince, 107 ; marries, 



INDEX. 



471 



I09 ; reforms army, 112 ; at 

Plevna, 1 14 ; proclaimed king, 

117 
Cimpulung, old Wallachian 

capital, 48 
Claudius, Roman Emperor, 24 
Clement, Metropolitan, 227 
Constantine, Roman Emperor, 

his bridge, 27 
Constantine and Methodius, 

apostles of the Balkans, 132, 

252 
Constantine, Bulgarian Czar, 180 
Cotiso, 5 
Courtea d'Ardges, cathedral of, 

46, 69 
Couza, Prince of Roumania, 

104 ; his rule, 105 ; deposed, 

107 
Cristic, Servian Minister, 348 
Crnoievic, George I., 379, 380 
Crnoievic, George II., 381 
Crnoievic, Stephen I., 366-9 
Crnoievic, Stephen II., 380, 381 

D. 

Dacia, old name of Roumania, 1 
" Dacia Aureliani," 25, 121 
Dacians, earliest inhabitants of 
Roumania, 1 ; first conflict 
with Romans, 2 ; their exploits, 
5 ; subdued by Trajan, 12 ; 
their characteristics, 16 
Dalmatia, union with Servia, 
261 ; assigned to Austria, 412 
Dandolo, Venetian doge, 172 
Danilo, Archbishop, Serb his- 
torian, 266, 269, 280 
Danilo I. of Montenegro, first 
hereditary Vladika, 391 ; his 
massacre of the Turks, 396 ; 
his victory at Tsarevlaz, 398 ; 
his death, 400 
Danilo II., last Vladika, divests 
himself of ecclesiastical power, 
438 ; his victories over the 
Turks, 439 ; his army reforms, 
440 ; his unpopularity, 445 ; 
the " Code Danilo," 447 ; his 
assassination, 448 



Darinka, Princess of Monte- 
negro, 438, 458 
Decebalus, Dacian king, his 
victories over the Romans, 6 ; 
his defeat, 10 ; his death, 12 
Deljan, Peter, revolt of, 161 
Desnica, old Serb capital, 254 
Despots, Serb, in Hungary, 303 
Dioclea residence of Serb rulers, 

258 ; Roman remains at, 356 
Dobroslav, Serb prince, 257 
Dobrudza, The, 2, 116, 124 
Domitian, wars with Dacians, 6 ; 

his road, 9 
Dondukoff - Korsakoff,! Prince, 
Russian Commissary in Bul- 
garia, 215 
Dragoche, 35 

Dromichajtes, Getic king, 3 
Dulcigno, demonstration at, 465 
Dusan, Czar Stephen, rebels 
against his father, 270 ; suc- 
ceeds to throne, 271 ; his vast 
empire, 274, 278 ; his code, 
278 ; marches on Constanti- 
nople, 281 ; dies, 282 ; his 
memory invoked, 225 



E. 



English influence in Balkans, in 
the time of Michael the Brave, 
54 ; appointment of British 
Consul at Bucharest, 84 ; Lord 
Palmerston and Roumania, 
98 ; sympathy with Bulgaria, 
.202 ; Mr. Gladstone and Bul- 
garia, 209 ; Sir W. White and 
Bulgaria, 224 ; England and 
Servia, 323, 336 ; England, 
ally of Montenegro, 418 ; 
gratitude of Montenegro, 465 



Ferdinand I., Prince of Bulgaria, 
is offered the throne, 235 ; his 
accession, 236 ; his character, 
236 ; his relations with Stam- 
buloff, 238 ; plots against him, 
241 ; his marriage, 242 ; birth 



472 



INDEX. 



of an heir, 243 ; dismisses 

Stambuloff, 244 
Flanders, Count of, 107 
French Revolution, effect of, on 

Balkans, 83 

G. 

Gabriel Roman, Bulgarian Czar, 
156 

Galitzin, 79 
Gepidae, 28 
German, Montenegrin Vladika, 

384 
Getae, earliest inhabitants of 

Roumania, 1 ; attacked by 

Philip of Macedon, 2 ; defeat 

Lysimachus, 3 
Ghika, Gregory I., 78 
Ghika, Gregory II., 89 
Giurgevo, 48, 100 
Gladstone, Mr., and Bulgaria, 

209 ; on Montenegro, 353, 370 ; 

gratitude of Montenegrins to, 

418, 465 
Golescou, Constantine, 94 
Golescou, General, 106 
Goths, invade Roumania, 23 ; 

repulsed by Constantine, 27 ; 

ravage Bulgaria, 122 
Gradina, Trajan's tablet, near, 9 
Grahovo, battle of, 446 
Greek War of Independence, 86 

H. 

Hadji Mustapha, "Mother of the 
Serbs," 309 

Hadrian, 22» 

Helis, 3 

Heraclius, defeats Avars, 29, 124 ; 
encourages Serbs, 250, 358 

Herodotus, on Geta;, 1, 15 ; on 
Illyrians, 119 

Herzegovina, The, united to 
Servia, 278 ; conquered by 
Turks, 370 ; insurrection of, 
205, 461 ; occupied by Austria, 

345, 4^7 
Hungarians, invade Roumania, 
30 ; invade Bulgaria, 136, 144 ; 
wars with Servia, 269, 277 ; 
claim Bulgaria, 298 



Huns, invade Roumania, 28! 

their King Attila, 28 ; invade 

Bulgaria, 122 
Hunyad, John, " White Knight 

of Wallachia," 293 ; aids Serbs, 

295 

I. 

Illyrians, old inhabitants of Bul- 
garia, 119 ; traces of their 
language, 125 ; on Adriatic 
coast, 250 ; defeated by 
Romans, 356 

Innocent III., 170 

Ivajlo, 181 

Ivan the Black, of Montenegro, 
makes Cetinje his capital, 371 ; 
founds printing-press, 372 ; his 
letter to the Doge, 374 

J- 

Jahja, " Count of Montenegro," 

389 
Janissaries at Belgrade, 309 ; 

defeated, 312 
Jassy, becomesMoldavian capital, 

48 ; printing-press at, 68 ; 

University of, 106 
John Alexander, Bulgarian Czar, 

185 

John "the Terrible," of Mol- 
davia, 49 

Joseph II., his scheme for par- 
tition of Turkey, 82 ; helps 
Serbs, 306 

Julia, Princess of Servia, 336 

Julianus, 7 

Justinian, " Restorer of Dacia," 
29 

Justinian II. wars with Bulgaria, 
126 

K. 

Kalafat, Russians at, 100 ; bom- 
barded, 1 13 

Kaliman I., Bulgarian Czar, 180 

Kaliman II., Bulgarian Czar, 
180 

Kalbjan, Bulgarian Czar, his 
correspondence with the Pope, 
170; captures Baldwin, 173; 
his death, 174 



INDEX. 



473 



Kara George, see Black George 
Karageorgevic,Alexander,Prince 

of Servia, 325 ; conspiracy 

against, 328 ; deposed, 330 
Karageorgevic, Peter, Servian 

Pretender, 339, 348 
Karakal, 23 

Kaulbars, Major-General, 233 
Kossovo, battle of, 38, 287, 362 
Krum, Bulgarian chief, invades 

Roumania, 30 ; captures Sofia, 

128 ; kills Greek emperor, 129 ; 

besieges Constantinople, 130 
Kumani, invade Roumania, 31 ; 

in Bulgaria, 163 
Kurt, or Kuvrat, Bulgarian chief, 

30, 124 

L 

azar, Servian Czar, tributary to 

Turks, 286 ; killed at Kossovo, 

288 
Lazarevic, Stephen, vassal of 

Sultan, 290 ; fortifies Belgrade, 

291 
Leo, Greek Emperor, 136 
Lombards, invasion of, 29 
Lysimachus, 3 

M. 

Macedonia, part of first Bulgarian 
Empire, 152 ; in treaty of San 
Stefano, 211 ; Bulgarian 
Bishops in, 240 ; Serbs in, 
270 

Marie-Louise, Princess of Bul- 
garia, 242 

Martial, on Dacians, 8 

Mavrocordato, Constantine, 77 

Mavrocordato, Nicholas, 73, 77 

Mavrogheni, Nicholas, 82 

Michael, Bulgarian Czar, defeats 
Serbs, 184, 269 

Michael III., Greek Emperor, 
132 

Michael Obrenovic III., Prince of 
Servia, his first reign, 324 ; his 
second reign, 332 ; his reforms, 
334 ; assassination, 338 

Michael the Brave of Wallachia, 
reign of, 51 ; annexes Tran- 



sylvania and Moldavia, 54 ; 
collapse of his " big Roumania," 
55 ; his death, 58 

Midhat Pasha, 203 

Mihnea, Radou, 62 

Milan Obrenovic II., Prince of 
Servia, 324 

Milan Obrenovic IV., Prince of 
Servia, 340 ; declares war on 
Turkey, 342 ; proclaimed king, 
346 ; attacks Bulgaria, 224, 348; 
abdicates, 349' 

Milosh Obrenovic I., origin of, 
316; "supreme chief," 318; 
recognised hereditary prince, 
321 ; his autocratic rule, 321 ; 
grants constitution, 322 ; ab- 
dicates, 324 ; returns, 330 

Mirko, "sword of Montenegro," 

445, 44 6 , 450, 453, 454, 455 

Mirtschea the Old, of Wallachia, 
36, 38, 39 

Mcesia, present Bulgaria, 23, 120 

Mohammed I., 292 

Mohammed II., 42, 294, 369 

Moldavia founded, 36 

Montenegrin cap, 363 ; educa- 
tion, 459 ; literature, 435, 451 ; 
military organisation, 440, 455- 

457 
Montenegro, origin of name, 353 ; 
printing-press in, 372, 384, 434, 
468 ; its elective Vladikas, 383 ; 
its hereditary Vladikas, 392 

N. 

Napoleon I., Balkan policy of, 
85 ; relations with Montenegro, 

413-417 

Napoleon III., supports Rou- 
mania, 102 ; friendship with 
Montenegro, 455 

Natalie, Queen of Servia, 349 

Nemanja, Stephen, unites Bosnia 
with Servia, 258 ; his interview 
with Barbarossa, 260 ; ab- 
dicates, 260 

Nicholas I., Prince of Monte- 
negro, his education, 451 ; his 
writings, 451 ; his first Turkish 



474 



INDEX. 



war, 452 ; his father's death, 
455 ; his military reforms, 455 ; 
his ministers, 458 ; his second 
Turkish war, 461 ; captures 
NikSic, 461 ; builds roads, 466 ; 
celebrates bicentenary of his 
dynasty, 468 
Nicopolis, battle of, 38, 189, 290 
Novibazar, Austrians in, 345, 467 

O. 

Obilic, Milosh, 289 
Obradovic, Serb poet, 306 
Obrenovic, see Michael, Milan, 

and Milosh 
Octavius, see Augustus 
Oltenitza, 100 
Omar Pasha, in Roumania, 100 ; 

in Montenegro, 439 
Omladina, Servian Society, 339 
Omortag, Bulgarian chief, 130 
Orsova, Roman road near, 9 
Osman Pasha, defends Plevna, 

116 
Ostrog, Montenegrin monastery, 

defence of, 453 
Ovid, in the Balkans, 5, 17, 121 



Panitza, Major, conspiracy of, 

241 
Paris, Convention of, 103 
Paris, Treaty of, 101, 327 
Pasvanoglu, of Vidin, brigand 

chief, 8$, 201, 310 
Patzinakitai, invade Roumania, 

31 ; and Bulgaria, 145 ; their 

settlements, 163 
Peace of Adrianople, 91, 320 
Peace of Belgrade, 79, 201, 305, 

401 
Peace, First, of Bucharest (1812), 

85,3i6 
Peace, Second, of Bucharest 

(1886), 226 
Peace of Campo Formio, 412 
Peace of Jassy, 83 
Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji, 80 
Peace of Pressburg, 413 



Peace of Tilsit, 85, 201, 415 
Peter, Bulgarian Czar, 142 
Peter I. of Montenegro, his cha- 
racter, 408 ; his successes over 
Turks, 410 ; his war with the 
French, 414 ; rejects Napo- 
leon's overtures, 416 ; captures 
Cattaro, 418; his code, 421 ; 
his death, 422 
Peter II. of Montenegro, his 
accession, 424 ; abolishes office 
of civil governor, 431 ; estab- 
lishes senate, 432 ; restores the 
press, 434 ; his writings, 435 ; 
his shrine, 437 
Peter the Great of Russia, enters 
Roumania, 72 ; sends envoy to 
Montenegro, 397 ; subsidises 
Montenegro, 399 
Phanariotes, origin of their name, 
73 ; their political influence in 
Roumania, 73 ; their luxury, 
75 ; their bad influence, 76 ; 
their fall, 89 ; their ecclesiasti- 
cal power in Bulgaria, 197 ; 
struggle against them, 205 
Philip of Macedon, in Roumania, 

2 ; in Bulgaria, 120 
Philippopolis, capital of South 
Bulgaria, outbreak of revolu- 
tion at, 223 
Pius IX. and Montenegro, 454 
Plautus, Getic slaves in, 3 
Pliny the Elder on Getae, 1 
Pliny the Younger on Dacian 

war, 11 
Podgorica, ceded to Montenegro, 

464 
Pomaks, Bulgarian Mussulmans, 

195 
Preslav, old Bulgarian capital, 

described, 139 
Pristina, ®ld Serb capital, 259, 

264 

R. 

Raeova, battle of, 43 

Radou Negrou, founds Walla- 
chia, 35 

Radoulescou, John Heliade, Rou- 
manian writer, 94, 98 



Index. 



47 5 



Ragusa, nutlet of Balkan trade, 
177; th. "South Slavonic 
Athens," 195 ; old Illyrian 
capital, 250 ; its merchants 
encouraged by Dusan, 279 ; 
besieged by Montenegrins, 
414 

Ristic, Servian Regent, 341, 349 

Romans, in Bulgaria, 121 ; in 
Roumania, 4, 19; traces of 
their language there, 22 ; they 
evacuate Roumania, 25 

Rosetti, Constantine, 96, 111 

Roumanian language, 22 ; litera- 
ture, 68 ; press, 94 

Roumelia, Eastern, under Berlin 
treaty, 213; its union with 
Bulgaria, 222 ; called South 
Bulgaria, 226 

Russians, in Bulgaria, 202, 215, 
221, 224, 230, 239; in Monte- 
negro, 399, 402, 405, 413, 420, 
457, 467 ; in Roumania, 70, 92, 

113 
Russo-Turkish wars (of 17 n), 
70, 72 ; (of 1736), 78 ; (of 1768I, 
79; (of 1787), 82; (of 1807), 
85 ; (of 1828), 91 ; (of 1854), 99 ; 
(of 1877), 113, 210, 343 



Samuel, Bulgarian Czar, his ac- 
cession, 151 ; extent of his 
emp : re, 152 ; his wars with 
Basil II., 154; destroys Dio- 
clea, 359; his deith, 156 

San S efano, treaty of, and Rou- 
mania, 116; and Bulgaria, 211; 
and Servia, 345 ; and Monte- 
negro, 464 

Sarmizegethusa, Dacian capital, 

7, ", 17 
Sava, Saint, 260 
Sava, Vladika of Montenegro, 

400 ; visits Russia, 402 ; ousted 

by Stephen the Little, 403 ; 

resto ed, 406 ; dies, 407 
Selim III., his treatment of the 

Janissaries, 309, 310 
Simeon, Bulgarian Czar, 134 ; 

extent of his empire, 138 ; 



devastates Servia, 137, 255 ; 
defeats Hungarians, 31 ; his 
titles, 139; his palace, 139; 
patronises learning, 141 ; his 
death, 142 

Sisman, of Trnovo, 145 

Sisman, John III., of Vidin, 187 

Sisman, Michael, of Vidin, 183 

Skanderbeg, Albanian hero, 368 

Skodra, or Scutari in Albania, 
capital of Praevalitana, 355 ; 
divided West from East of 
Europe,- 356 ; Balsha's capital, 
362 ; convention of, 454 

Slavs, first mentioned in Bul- 
garia, 122 ; their origin and 
character, 123 ; contrasted with 
old Bulgarians, 125 ; enter 
Illyria, 358 

Sliviiitza, battle of, 225, 348 

Sofia, captured by Krum, 128 ; 
conquered by Bulgarians, 168 ; 
residence of Turkish governor, 
195 ; present Bulgarian capital, 
247 

Stambuloff , Bulgarian statesman, 
his efforts against Turks, 206 ; 
Speaker of Sobranjc, 223 ; 
appeals to Bulgarians, 229 ; 
one of the Regents, 231 ; Prime 
Minister, 237 ; his character, 
237 ; his Turkish policy, 239 ; 
orders execution of Panitza, 
241 ; his relations with Prince 
Ferdinand, 244 ; his dismissal, 
245 ; his murder, 246 

Stanicha, story of, 374 

Stephen the Great of Moldavia, 
40 

Stephen VI. of Servia, 263 

Stephen VII. (Uros III.), 269; 
overthrows Bulgarian Empire, 
184, 270 

Stephen the Little, or Mali, im- 
posture of, in Montenegro, 403 

Stirheiu Barbe, 99, 103 

Stoiloff, M., present Bulgarian 
Premier, 245 

Suceava, old Moldavian capital, 
48, 81 

Svetslav, Bulgarian Czar, 183 



476 



INDEX. 



T. 

Tacitus, on Dacians, 6 
Takovo, 318 
Tapie, battles at, 7, 10 
Tartars, 33 
Telec, 128 

Tennyson on Montenegro, 353 
Terence, Getic slaves in, 3 
Terterij I., Bulgarian Czar, 182 
Terterij II., 183 
Tervel, 127 
Theodoric, 124 
Thrace, 120 

Thucydides, on Getas, 2 
Tirgovischtea, Wallachian capi- 
tal, 48 
Trajan, in Dacia, 8 ; his bridge, 

11, 22 ; his column, 13 
Transylvania, Roumanians in, 

19, 118; annexed to Hungary, 

31 ; conquered by Michael the 

Brave, 54 ; revolts, 56 
Trnovo, old Bulgarian capital, 

"Baldwin's Tower" at, 173; 

Church of 40 Martyrs, 176 ; 

captured by Turks, 188 
Tsarevlaz, battle of, 398 
Turnu-Severin, Trajan's bridge 

at, 11 
Tvartko, Stephen, King of 

Bosnia, 284 

U. 

Ubicini, historian of Roumania, 

98 
Uros, Stephen, of Servia, 260 
Uros V., of Servia, 283 
Utza, story of, 47 

V. 

Vacarescou, Roumanian poet, 
101 

Vassili, Montenegrin Prince- 
Bishop, 401 



Varna, battle of, 199, 294 
Velbuzd, battle of, 184, 270 
Venice, confers title on Dusan, 
276 ; at war with Montenegrins, 
365 ; Venetian marriages of 
Montenegrin rulers, 375, 380, 
381 ; loses Dalmatia, 412 
Vespasian, 6 

Vidin, an independent princi- 
pality, 183 ; capture of, 262 
Vlad "the Impaler," inWallachia, 

40 
Vladikas, Montenegrin Prince- 
Bishops, elective, 383 ; here- 
ditary, 392 ; last of, 438 
Vladimirescou, Toudor, 87 
Voukacin, Servian usurper, 284 
Vulkovic, Dr., assassination of, 
242 

W. 

Waldemar, Prince of Denmark, 
refuses Bulgarian throne, 234 
Wallachia, foundation of, 35 
"Wallachian Vespers," 52 
Wallachs, origin of, 32 



Ypsilanti, Alexander, 87 
Ypsilanti, Demetrius, 88 



2abljak, old Montenegrin capital, 
368 ; abandoned, 371 ; seized 
by the Koutchi, 427 ; ceded to 
Montenegro, 464 

Zankoff, Bulgarian Liberal poli- 
tician, 220 ; Russophil leader, 
225, 229 

Zeta, principality of, 359 

Zupans, Servian chiefs, 251, 358 



XLhc Btovy of tbe IKlations. 



MESSRS. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
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The "Stories" are printed in good readable type, and 
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cloth, $1.50. Half morocco, gilt top, $1.75. 

The following are now ready (Nov., 1896) : 



GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harri- 
son. 

ROME. Arthur Gilman. 

THE JEWS. Prof. James K.Hos- 
mer. 

CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 

NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boye- 
sen t 

SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan 
Hale. 

HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 

CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. 
Church. 

THE SARACENS. Arthur Gil- 
man. 

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stan- 
ley Lane-Poole. 

THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne 
Jewett. 

PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. 
Rawlinson. 

ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. 
J. P. Mahaffy. 

ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

THE COfHS. Henry Bradley. 

IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PER- 
SIA. Z. A, Ragozin. 

MEDI/CVAL FRANCE. Prof. 
Gustave Masson. 

HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold 
Rogers. 

MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

PHOENICIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 



THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen 

Zimmern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred 

J. Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. 

Stanley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. 

D. Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and 

Mrs. A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse Stevens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. 

W. C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. 

Bella Duffy. 
POLAND. W. R. Morfill. 
PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 
JAPAN. David Murray. 
THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY 

OF SPAIN. H.E. Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tre- 

garthen. 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. 

Theal. 
VENICE. AletheaWiel. 
THE CRUSADES. T.S.Archer 

and C. L. Kingsford. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C.E.Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. Wil- 
liam Miller. 
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R, 

W. Frazer. 



Iberoes of tbe IRations. 

EDITED BY 

EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A SERIES of biographical studies of the lives and work 
of a number of representative historical characters about 
whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations 
to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in 
many instances, as types of the several National ideals. 
With the life of each typical character will be p/esented 
a picture of the National conditions surrounding him 
during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are recog 
nized authorities on their several subjects, and, while 
thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque 
and dramatic " stories " of the Men and of the events con- 
nected with them. 

To the Life of each " Hero " will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, pro- 
vided with maps and adequately illustrated av:cording to 
the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows : 

Cloth extra . . „ . . .• . . $i 50 
Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top . . 1 75 



The first group of the Series comprises the following 
volumes : 

Nelson, and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. Clark 
Russell, author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. 

Gustavus Adolphus, and the Struggle of Protestantism for Exist- 
ence. By C. R. L. Fletcher, M. A., late Fellow of All Souls College. 

Pericles, and the Golden Age of Athens. By Evelyn Abbott, M.A. 

Theodoric the Goth, the Barbarian Champion of Civilisation. By 
Thomas Hodgkin, author of •' Italy and Her Invaders," etc. 

Sir Philip Sidney, and the Chivalry of England. By H. R. Fox- 
bourne, author of "The Life of John Locke," etc. 

Julius Caesar, and the Organisation of the Roman Empire. By W. 
Warde Fowler, M.A:, Fellow of Lincoln College. Oxford. 

John Wyclif, Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English Re- 
formers. By Lewis Sergeant, author of " New Greece," etc. 

Napoleon, Warrior and Ruler, and the Military Supremacy of 
Revolutionary France. By W. O'Connor Morris. 

Henry of Navarre, and the Huguenots in France. By P. F. Willert, 
M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 

Cicero, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. By J. L. Strachan 
Davidson, M.A. , Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 

Abraham Lincoln, and the Downfall of American Slavery. By 
Noah Brooks. 

Prince Henry (of Portugal) the Navigator, and the Age of Dis- 
covery. By C. R. Beazley, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 

Julian the Philosopher, and the Last Struggle of Paganism against 
Christianity. By Alice Gardner. 

Louis XIV., and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. By Arthur 
Hassall, M. A. , Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 

Charles XII., and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire, 1682-1719. 
By R. Nisbet Bain. 

Lorenzo de' Medici. By Edward Armstrong, M.A. 

Jeanne d'Arc. By Mrs. Oliphant. 

Christopher Columbus. By Washington Irving. 

Robert the Bruce, and the Struggle for Scottish Independence. 
By Sir Herbert Maxwell. M.P. 
To be followed by : 

The Cid Campeador, and the Waning of the Crescent in the West. 

By H. Butler Clarke, Windham College, Oxford. 
Hannibal, and the Crisis of the Struggle between Carthage and 

Rome. By W. O'Connor Morris, author of " Napoleon," etc. 
Moltke, and the Military Supremacy of Germany. By Spencer 

Wilkinson, University of London. 
Bismarck. The New German Empire, How it Arose and What it 

Displaced. By J. W. Hedlam, M.A., Fellow of King's College, 

Cambridge. 
Judas Maccabaeus, the Conflict between Hellenism and Hebraism. 

By Abraham Isaacs, author of the " Life of the Jews in the Middle 

Ages." 
Henry V., the English Hero King. By Charles L. Kingsford, joint- 
author of the " Story of the Crusades." 

new york G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS london 







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